For Bucks Sake! Don’t litter in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire Council is sending a hard-hitting message to anyone tempted to litter in the county – For Bucks Sake – don’t do it!
Anyone caught deliberately littering in Buckinghamshire will face a Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) for £500 under a hard-hitting new policy adopted today following a decision by Buckinghamshire Council’s Cabinet, which is due to take effect from next week.
Sweet wrappers, fast food containers, cigarette butts and vape canisters are all familiar sights on our verges, open spaces and roadsides because people have chosen to dump them rather than dispose of them responsibly.
In a bid to clamp down on these litter louts, Buckinghamshire Council has today agreed a raft of strong new measures to tackle the issue head on. The council is an early adopter of new powers allowing an increase in the penalty amount for littering – from £150 to £500. The council has chosen to adopt this maximum rate without the option of an early payment discount to act as a strong deterrent to stop people littering in the first place.
Under its hard-hitting campaign, the council will also be appealing to motorists and road users to send in dash-cam and phone footage of littering they may have captured on camera – where of course, it is safe to do so.
Thomas Broom, Buckinghamshire Council’s Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Environment explained the reasoning behind the new campaign. He said: “For too long, littering has been seen as a low impact misdemeanour, when in fact, it is a huge blight on our community. Buckinghamshire is not unique in having problems with litter, but we are one of the first councils choosing to tackle the issue head on with this hard hitting, zero tolerance approach.”
Dealing with discarded litter is an ongoing problem for councils up and down the country. Annually it costs Buckinghamshire tax-payers an estimated £3.5m to clean and dispose of littered waste. It’s a huge £25,000 every time the council clears litter from the A404 Marlow by-pass; this is because we have to cover the costs of traffic management to make sure it’s safe for our workers to clean up this busy and dangerous stretch of road.
Thomas continued: “We want to send a message out loud and clear, we will not tolerate littering in Buckinghamshire. If you are caught, you will face a hefty penalty so take your rubbish home or dispose of it properly in a bin.”
Martin Tett, Leader of Buckinghamshire Council said: “Alongside our zero-tolerance stance on fly-tipping, preventing littering is a priority for us as a council. It is something that we know really upsets our residents and we want to work with them to catch the culprits and send a strong message out which we hope will deter others.”
Under the new approach, the council will use civil enforcement powers to penalise the registered keeper of a vehicle linked to a littering offence rather than needing to identify the exact individual who dropped the litter. This makes it easier to secure a positive result as you don’t need to be the one who dropped the litter to have to pay the consequences.”