A warning has been issued after 56 used needles were found on the streets of Allerdale in the last six months.

Allerdale council has revealed the shocking figure - which is over four times more than the number of reports it received in the same period last year.

It follows an incident of a dirty needle being found by children in Workington's St Mary School's playground last week.

The three little girls, who had disposed of the needle themselves without alerting an adult, were rushed to hospital after five-year old Evie Telford told her father.

And the same week, Evie's sister Lily, eight, found another on the street near the Salterbeck school entrance.

The council is now urging the public to alert it immediately if dirty needles are found and warn that the number of used needles abandoned in public places has increased.

Specialist training and equipment is needed to safely remove and dispose of dirty needles and the council is warning people not to pick them up themselves.

A council spokesman said: "However, it may be useful to cover the syringe with a brick or something similar to stop others from stepping on it."

Many of the reports were sent using the council's MyAllerdale mobile phone application, which automatically identifies the person’s location.

The spokesman added: "The council has certainly seen an increase in reports in a number of areas due to the ease of use for the MyAllerdale app. However, the public are so aware of the serious nature of needles that we would expect to receive reports through the various different channels available to them, not necessarily just the app. It is therefore likely that there is a real increase in needles being left in public places. We would advise residents to be vigilant and encourage them to report any abandoned needles through myAllerdale."

Michael Heaslip, executive member with responsibility for street cleaning, said: "Unfortunately we do have people who are using syringes for drugs and aren’t disposing of them safely. Therefore I would advise anyone who sees a syringe lying around to report it to us and we’ll deal with it as a priority."

The MyAllerdale app is free to download and is available from the Google Play, Apple and Microsoft app stores. Reports can also be made through Allerdale council's website.