More than half of Hertfordshire County Council’s household waste sites including St Albans and Harpenden were closed over the weekend because of strains to the network.

Liberal Democrat county councillor Sandy Walkington said "there is a real threat Hertfordshire will become fly tip heaven" after sites were partially and fully closed because they were unable to cope with waste demand from residents.

Councillor Walkington said: "The Conservative administration plans to rip another £750,000 out of the budget for operating the county's household waste sites.

"We don't yet have details of how they are going to achieve this.  It seems inevitable that some sites will close and the opening hours at others will be curtailed.  Yet this weekend has demonstrated that the existing network is already unable to cope.

"The Conservative administration at county needs to realise that there will continue to be summer weekends, residents will expect to be able to use the household waste site network, and there needs to be an urgent review of the lessons learned from this last weekend's fiasco."

Conservative Councillor Terry Douris, chairman of the highways and waste management cabinet was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.