WALKERS were left “disgusted” after a huge pile of rubbish was dumped in the middle of a footpath.

Bags of waste were left on the path close to the Old Links Golf Club off Chorley Old Road with bags full of litter, including McDonald’s cartons, and baby toys.

Annie Shaw walks in the area regularly and said she was horrified at what she saw.

The Smithills resident said: “It was last Friday evening when I was walking on a path in close to the Old Links Golf Club.

“There were basically a lot of bags there of mostly household rubbish. I have reported it to the council but I’ve not heard anything back yet.

“I just think it is disgusting because when you are walking through the countryside, you do not want to come across something like that.

“It seems to be happening more and more. We live in Smithills and we just see it all around in the green belt area.

“I do not know if that land belongs to the golf club or to the farm nearby but it was just sitting right in the middle of the footpath.

“They must have come up there in a van to bring all that stuff with them.”

A spokesman from Bolton Council confirmed the rubbish had been removed.

It is the second countryside fly-tipping incident in recent days after a similar case at popular beauty spot Winter Hill last week.

The Litter Pickers of North Bolton recently cleared an area of moorland after household waste was left close to one of the footpaths at the beloved beauty spot.

Members of the group bagged most of the rubbish at the weekend and reported it to Bolton Council. Workers from the authority then collected the rest of the waste.

Eileen McKay Crowe, co-founder of the litter picking group, urged people to report all incidents to Bolton Council, as she was saddened that it had been left unreported for a number of days.

“If it is not reported then it can not be collected. So I felt sad about that. We have all got to be responsible because it is our litter.

“We can not get into the blame game and accusing young people or drunk people who have gone to the takeaway.”

She added: “I just felt so unbelievably sad that somebody would think it was alright to do something like that.

“But what also made me sad is that so many people go walking around there and nobody reported it.

“This incident did not happen at the weekend, there was a lot of old stuff there."

Incidents of fly-tipping can be reported to Bolton Council via the authority’s website at bolton.gov.uk