Newly-hired staff have been told to stop charging people £5 when they drop off garden waste at the Oxford recycling centre.

Oxfordshire County Council has offered refunds for anyone who was wrongly charged at the Redbridge waste recycling centre, off Abingdon Road, this week. Duwan Flanakin, from Kennington, was charged £5 after dropping off a third bag of top soil at the waste centre on Tuesday.

A county council spokesman said the charges had been made by mistake and people could take their receipt to the council for a full refund.

Mrs Flanakin's husband Nigel said: "No wonder there is a fly-tipping problem if they are charging for the third bags. I thought it must be wrong but when we phoned the council they said there has been a new £5 charge for the past six weeks."

The council has denied bringing in extra charges for people who drop off a third bag of waste and blamed it on new staff who had not been fully trained working at the waste centre.

Fay Dashper, the county council's waste contracts officer, said: "There is no £5 charge for garden waste at any of our recycling centres. If people have been charged and have a receipt they should come to us for a refund. The present system for dealing with DIY waste has been in place for almost six years.

"People are allowed to bring up to three items of DIY waste for free and are charged £1 per item thereafter."

The county council runs eight recycling centres.