MOTORISTS are being warned that the police will catch them out if they do not have a valid car tax disc.

Police Community Support Officer Nigel Brooks was speaking after 66 cars were clamped last week in Blackburn for either having an out of date disc, or none at all.

It had taken PCSO Nigel Brook months to build up a picture of all the target vehicles after taking tip-offs from members of the public, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, police officers, traffic wardens and other agencies.

Each day last week PCSO Brook and officials from the DVLA targeted a different area of town and clamped the cars one by one.

PCSO Brooks said that people sometimes reported a car without a valid tax disc and were frustrated when no action appeared to be taken by police or the DVLA.

But he stressed that the blitz on untaxed cars could only take place every few months when there were enough target vehicles.

And PCSO urged people to continue reporting untaxed vehicles to the police with the promise that the information will always be acted on,

During the operation last week, 44 per cent of clamped cars had a tax disc that was six months out of date and 14 per cent that was more than half-a-year out of date.

Some 36 per cent did not have a tax disc displayed and four per cent had a disc meant for another vehicle.

According to the DVLA, the release fee for clamped vehicles is £80 -- as long as a valid licence has been bought. Vehicles towed away and impounded if not claimed within 24 hours cost a fee of £160 to release, plus £15 extra per day.

PCSO Brooks added: "There is no real question that the best source of information is the public ringing in -- the majority of information is from the public.

"The exercise does cost a lot of money to set up and we couldn't run one every week. If someone rings in with a car on one street, we won't just do an operation on that, we will build it up over several months.

"When it is worth while we will build up the operation from intelligence and split it into manageable areas and start working in the areas where we get the most complaints."