The wildlife charity is no stranger to picking up litter on its sites with volunteers collecting tonnes of rubbish each year including dirty nappy bags, clothing, bottles and cans, pizza boxes, old household appliances and parts of old vehicles.

However, this January the problem is worse than previous years as people have clear outs to make space for their Christmas presents or items bought in the January sale.

Since the start of the month, the wildlife charity has seen an increasing number of items ranging from bin bags of household rubbish to items of furniture being left on many of its remoter reserves - dumped as an alternative to them being taken to a local tip or paying the local authority to collect them. The problem is made more difficult by the fact that many Trust volunteers are isolating due to covid or reducing their volunteering efforts for fear of contracting the virus.

Christmas trees are also abandoned on its reserves each January and although, many people may think it’s not an issue putting them back into the wild, however they are still a nuisance as they need clearing out of the way of important wildlife.

At the St Nicholas Park reserve in Gosforth, members of the public have broken the lock on the Trust’s large commercial bin and filled it with their rubbish at a cost to the charity, which will have to pay for it to be emptied sooner than budgeted for.

Geoff Dobbins, Northumberland Wildlife Trust Estates Manager says: “We are a charity relying heavily on volunteer support to maintain our 60 plus reserves, so for us to have to start moving other people’s dumped rubbish is a waste of their time and our resources.

“We are asking everybody to be vigilant to contact 101 to report such anti-social behaviour."