PEOPLE suffering problems such as fly-tipping or abandoned cars can now text council officers to get them to take action.

The scheme allows residents to send a text straight to Winchester City Council to report problems or just to ask someone from the authority to call them back.

Topics covered include fly-tipping, house repairs and abandoned vehicles.

Winchester is following in the footsteps of Southampton City Council and Fareham Borough Council, which have already introduced a text scheme.

The council hopes that it will save time and money and improve its customer service.

In Winchester the person reporting a problem simply needs to send a text with the nature of their complaint, followed by their name.

So to report a fly-tipping problem, residents would just send a text saying: Flytipping their surname the location of the rubbish, and to get someone to call them, they would text: Call Back their surname their house number and their postcode.

Deputy leader Councillor George Hollingbery said: "As part of our focus on improving customer service, we have introduced the SMS text service.

"The benefits speak for themselves you can save time and money by texting your request to us any time of the day or night. You will receive and auto-reply message and the customer service team will then get back to you."

He added that customer service would reply to the number the text came from unless an alternative number is specified, and that the cost of the service was the same as a normal text message, with the council not making any money from the scheme.

To write a text to the council, send your message to 07797 877004.