The councillor responsible for the environment has said it was too early to tell whether the introduction of controversial residents’ permits for waste sites had led to an increase in fly-tipping which, he said, has been rising since 2011.

Councillor Andrew Thornton’s comments came a day after the Telegraph & Argus revealed how fly-tipping complaints had increased by nearly a quarter since the controversial permit system came into force in June .

From January 1 to June 30, Bradford Council received 2,725 complaints, an average of 105 per week. But in the three months since the permit was introduced, from July 1 to September 30, 1,690 complaints were received by the Council, an average of 130 complaints per week – an increase of 23.8 per cent. Since June, people using Council-run household waste tips have had to prove they are Bradford Council tax-payers by showing a residents’ permit.

The scheme, brought in by the Labour-run authority, was labelled as “hare-brained” and “costly control-freakery” by other political group leaders at the time.

Councillor Martin Love, (Green, Shipley), the head of the scrutiny committee on the Council, which is looking into environmental issues, will ask his members today if an investigation into the problem should be held.

This year’s increases come on the back of figures showing that fly-tipping complaints rose 17 per cent in the previous two years. Figures released by the Council show that 7,919 complaints about fly-tipping and littering were reported in 2010 compared to 9,321 in 2012. Coun Thornton said last night: “Reporting and incidents of fly-tipping dealt with by the Council have been on a generally upward trend since the third quarter of 2011-12 (October to December 2011) financial year.

“Incidents of flytipping were 15 per cent higher in the first three months (January to March) of this year than in the last three months (October to December) of 2012.

“This trend continued through the second quarter (April to June) of 2013 when incidents of flytipping were 17 per cent higher than in the first quarter, and the third quarter (July to September) up nine per cent on the second quarter.

“Set against this underlying upward trend it is too early to tell what, if any, long term impact the introduction of residents permits may have had.”