Dutch municipalities collected €1.8 million in fines from people relieving themselves in the street last year.

Altogether 14,000 people were ticketed for urinating or defecating in public, known respectively in Dutch as wildplassen or wildpoepen. There is no specific offence in law but many local councils include a prohibition in their local regulations (APV).

Unsurprisingly, Amsterdam topped the league table, with a total of 1,188 fines, but in relative terms Valkenburg aan de Geul was the front runner with 80 fines per 10,000 residents, compared to 14.1 in the capital.

The problem was most acute in locations that are popular with stag parties and weekend breaks such as Valkenburg and the Wadden island of Terschelling, which clocked up 30 fines despite having a population of less than 5000.

The figures also showed the number of tickets issued fell sharply from the 2017 figure of 21,000.