Private firm to tackle littering in BCP Council area
Contractors are already used to focus on flytipping
A private service tackling flytipping across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole is set to be extended to include littering.
BCP Council's been told the fines could generate £50,000 worth of income.
A contractor's been working across the three towns over the past year focusing on just flytipping - with 365 fixed penalty notices handed out.
Councillor Bobby Dove says the trial has been a success:
"Our assessments showed that all complaints and reports related to flytipping and flyposting had been responded to during this pilot, and at no cost to the taxpayer."
Councillor Mark Anderson says the crackdown on flyitpping's made a big difference:
"(There's been) quite significant increases in cleanliness around the towns - particularly where we had spoken to a lot of commercial organisations, who hadn't realised they had a duty of care for waste."
It's expected littering offences would carry a fixed penalty of £150, or £75 if paid within 14 days.
Councillors on the place overview and scrutiny committee backed the proposals to Cabinet to continue with the existing privately run contractor working on fly tipping and fly posting offences until March 2023 and then to extend the service to include littering after a tender process for the contract.
But there has been criticism of the existing contractors.
Cllr Mike Brooke said that of 2,000 flytipping investigations carried, only 365 fixed penalty notices were issued, and a third of those went unpaid:
“It doesn’t seem cost effective to me.”