Spain is getting tough with the litterbugs, and worse, responsible for turning its capital city into a rubbish tip.

New laws have raised the fine for dog owners who let their pets soil Madrid's public places to £1,300, persistent litterers will be hit with £620 fines and anyone caught spraying graffiti will face a £2,700 penalty.

The laws will be backed by a 300-strong squad of "rubbish police" patrolling the streets and imposing the fines.

"The goal is to defend the rights of the majority, who pay a lot of money in order to live in a city that is clean and safe," said Ana Botella, a conservative Madrid town councillor who spearheaded the plan, and who is also the wife of former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar.

Many residents, long since tired of watching their step when they walk and holding their noses during the steamy hot summers, say it is about time.

Parents of young children are perhaps the plan's strongest supporters. Many playgrounds in Madrid's centre are in public squares ringed with pubs that overflow into the streets in the evenings. By morning, all manner of waste can be found amid the swings.

"I think it's a good idea," said young mother Maria Lamamie De Clairac with her daughter at a playground in the Plaza Dos de Mayo in central Madrid. Looking around the plaza, she said that it was not particularly child-friendly.

"It's dirty - dirty and full of drunks," she said, gesturing to a group of men holding cans of beer in the early afternoon.

Carmen Orellana Olivares, a nanny, said she thought it was high time the city dealt with the aroma left over from weekend partying.

"It smells of urine here," she said, playing with a two-year-old boy on a seesaw. "The problem isn't so much the garbage, but the smells from the night before."