East Staffordshire Borough Council has begun a programme of targeted enforcement initiatives to improve local environmental quality.
English: Litter bin in Conway Square, Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland, March 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A team of Officers from the Council is being dispatched to deal with a wide range of issues that have a negative impact on the community.
The team is working with partner agencies, local business and the community on a variety of co-ordinated initiatives to tackle local environment issues such as street litter, commercial and domestic waste storage and disposal, fly-tipping, untidy gardens, dog fouling, inconsiderate parking and drinking in streets. Checks are also being carried out on licensed premises and takeaways.
The first phase of the initiative focussed on the Anglesey area, where the Council incurs most cost in keeping the streets clean.
In advance of the initiative officers visited all retail premises in the area to seek their support. This was then followed with two ‘all-day’ initiatives that would also extend into the evenings to ensure that ‘problem’ times of day were covered.
Over the two days council officers issued fixed penalty notices to four people caught dropping litter, and issued 38 penalty charge notices for parking infringements. Five vehicles were reported to the DVLA for failing to display valid excise licences.
The initiative also revealed a further eleven issues requiring formal intervention – 4 cases of fly tipping, 2 dilapidated buildings and 5 accumulations of refuse.
At the same time Licensing Enforcement Officers and Environmental Health Officers also visited 42 businesses within the locality to conduct compliance checks and premises licence inspections.
Five of these businesses were required to put measures in place to resolve waste storage issues and were subsequently checked to make sure that the recommendations had been put in place.
Councillor Julia Jessel, Deputy Leader (Regulatory Services) said: “The Council spends a lot of time and council tax payers’ money trying to keep our borough clean and green. We have been spending a disproportionate amount of our budget on street cleaning in areas such as Anglesey and we continue to encourage people to behave in ways that improve the community for everyone.
“We have not reduced the street cleaning budget but are using it in a more effective way. There are though a minority of people that disregard this and behave irresponsibly towards their neighbours and the wider community. Through initiatives such as this we will tackle those that persistently cause problems and ensure that people are able to take pride in the places where they live.”
