MESSY traders could be forced to clean up their back yards as part of a fresh clamp down on litter.

Waste bosses at Chiltern District Council are to send official letters to retailers and shopkeepers in Chesham town centre whose yards are deemed to look scruffy and untidy.

The letters will ask traders to clear up their mess or face a team of council workmen who will do the job instead and then charge them for the privilege.

Cllr John Warder, Chiltern District Council's executive member for environmental management, told retailers at a meeting of Chesham Town Consortium last Wednesday: "The problem in Chesham seems to me to be the area behind the High Street where you've got private yards where you have got a great deal of rubbish which looks very unsightly.

"We don't clean this as a matter of course because they are privately owned. We are prepared to write a letter asking them to clean it up because it is making a mess of the environment."

This latest clean-up drive comes after Chesham and Amersham were branded as two of the dirtiest towns in Britain in the national press. Chiltern District Council argues that the figures quoted were misleading.

Cllr Warder, who visited Chesham to see the mess for himself, added: "The hope is that people will clear the mess up before any further action needs to be taken. I'm sure most of them will."