WHEN was the last time you saw an abandoned car in your road?

If the latest figures are to be believed, it was probably quite a while ago.

Councils across England have seen a 72 per cent drop in the number of abandoned vehicles being reported in the last four years.

According to the Local Government Association, councils cleared up an average of 800 dumped vehicles in 2003, but the figure fell to just 225 this year.

Bournemouth Borough Council actually saw a drop of 81 per cent, dealing with 1,602 vehicles in 2002 to 2003 and just 306 in 2006 to 2007.

Local authorities are undoubtedly taking a tougher stance, but the rocketing price of recyclable metals has also had a huge impact.

Once upon a time you would have to pay a scrap merchant to take away your old banger. Now, they pay you.

In fact, dealers will shell out up to £200 for an unwanted vehicle, simply because of the price of the steel, aluminium and copper found in the wiring and bodywork.

Nelson Stanley, manager and director of Nelson Stanley Ltd, a scrap metal yard in Parkstone, said he had paid upwards of £150 for a car brought into him.

But he added the industry, like many others, had been affected by the current economic climate.

"The prices have been up because of the world market but because of the slump it's dropping, like all commodities," he explained.

"We are buying cars off people but we aren't paying as much as we used to for them. Now the average price would be somewhere between £80 and £100."

Nelson said the metal was crushed at the depot and sent on to other firms, which then processed the metal again before selling it on.

But will the drop in prices lead to an increase in dumped cars yet again?

It seems not.

Another scrap metal merchant said: "All the time Joe Public can take a car to the scrap yard and get paid for it there will be no abandoned cars."

It's amazing how the situation has turned around in just a few years.

In 2001 there were so many dumped cars on the streets of Dorset that the Echo launched its Wreck Busters campaign in a bid to rid the county of its unsightly abandoned vehicles.

Our efforts, backed by then Prime Minster Tony Blair, saw enquiries to Bournemouth's Town Hall increase by 56 per cent, with the removal of vehicles increasing by 46 per cent over two years.

An amnesty held earlier this year by Dorset County Council in partnership with Dorset Police and Dorset Fire and Rescue Service saw 131 abandoned vehicles taken off the streets thanks to a free collection service.

But it's not just the price of metal which has affected the situation, as Bournemouth Borough Council's street services compliance manager Jim Clegg explains.

"Obviously the cost of scrap metal is the main reason," he said.

"But I think there's more public awareness nowadays because it's a lot easier to report an abandoned vehicle. There's lots of different means to do it now, including through the internet, and the public are more aware that we will do something."

Thanks to a change in legislation in 2006, councils are also now able to remove a dumped vehicle immediately, but Jim said that power was rarely used and a 24-hour notice was usually issued to give any owner the chance to claim the vehicle.

But he explained: "People are aware that if they leave their vehicle somewhere and it's deemed to have been abandoned they may well lose it."