Refuse - litter - enforcement
People can be charged a fixed penalty notice if they are caught
littering. The fixed penalty notice gives offenders the
opportunity to pay £75 to discharge any liability to
prosecution. If a person is issued with a fixed penalty
notice they have 14 days to pay. This is part of the Clean
Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005.
Police Community Support Officers
These uniformed, police employees also have the power to issue
fixed penalty notices. The penalty to be paid to the Local
Authority. Maidstone Borough Council and Kent Police have
entered into an agreement setting out the arrangements for managing
this process.
Litter Fixed Penalty Notices -
Frequently Asked Questions
The issuing of fixed penalty notices
is one of the means by which the
problem of littering is being tackled
within the borough. Year on year
increases in the number of Fixed
Penalty Notices being issued reflects the
fact that there is still a problem
with littering on our streets. Since the
Health Act came into force there has
also been a decline in street
cleanliness associated with cigarette
waste. This is reflected not only in
the statistics but also in the
environmental quality surveys undertaken by
Waste Management that record cigarette
waste being the most prevalent
waste upon our streets.
Set out below are some of the more
common Q & As associated with
Fixed Penalty Notices.
Can I Appeal against a Fixed Penalty
Notice I have been issued?
There are no formal grounds of appeal
against a Fixed Penalty Notice.
This is because a Fixed Penalty Notice
is an invitation for you to
effectively “buy off” your liability
to prosecution. In essence this means
that whilst this is not an admission
of guilt, you agree that an offence
has been committed and that by paying
the sum of money specified no
further action will be undertaken by
the Borough Council. This method of
dealing with offences not only saves
the time involved for everyone
(including the offender) in
prosecuting cases at Court, but the cost
associated with a Fixed Penalty Notice
is likely to be substantially lower
than any fine imposed by the Courts.
For example the maximum penalty
which can be imposed by the Courts for
littering is £2,500.
But I don’t agree that I committed
the offence for which I have
received a Fixed Penalty Notice?
If you do not agree that you committed
the offence for which you
received the Fixed Penalty Notice then
the matter will be dealt with
through formal prosecution via the
Courts. It will then be up to the
Court, on receiving evidence, to
determine whether or not an offence
was committed and therefore whether or
not any penalty should be
imposed. Effectively this means that
the formal Court route becomes the
mechanism for those wishing to appeal
a Fixed Penalty Notice. It should
be noted that the financial penalty
imposed by the Courts can be
significantly greater than that which
is imposed through a Fixed Penalty
Notice.
I don’t see why I should pay if there
are no signs about littering in
the area where I dropped it?
The Local Authority is not required to
place signs in every street, road,
highway or open park/space to tell
people not to litter or to inform them
that litter patrols are operating in
the area. Litter legislation has been in
force for many years and littering in
many parts of the UK is at such
levels that Local Authorities right
across the country are now actively
issuing Fixed Penalty Notices in order
to drive the message home to
those who spoil our Towns and Cities
by carelessly discarding their
rubbish.
Why should I pay a Fixed Penalty
Notice when there were no
litterbins nearby at the time?
As with signage it is just not
feasible for the Local Authority to place
litterbins in every street, road and
highway in the city, though of course
every effort is made to place bins
where they are most needed and
where there are the greatest levels of
pedestrian footfall, such as in town
centres and major shopping areas.
Where bins are not available then it is
up to everyone to act responsibly and
make arrangements to either take
their litter home or carry it until a
litterbin is available.
I received a Fixed Penalty Notice for
stubbing out a cigarette, surely
that can’t be considered
littering?
Wrong, litter includes not only
cigarette butts but chewing gum also. In
many ways these items are more of a
nuisance and more expensive to
clean up than other items of
rubbish.
But cigarette stubs aren’t really
waste as they can’t be placed in
litterbins because they will catch
fire?
Smokers are responsible for ensuring
that they completely extinguish
their cigarettes before placing them
in the bin. Cigarette waste is the
same as any other waste in terms of
litter laws and you can be issued
with a Fixed Penalty Notice for not
disposing of cigarette stubs properly.
Obviously care should be taken to
avoid any risk of fire and in particular
cigarette ends should be completely
extinguished on the stubbing plates
provided on many litterbins before the
stub is thrown into the bin. There
is also no reason why smokers (who are
well aware that their habit
means that they will be faced with
disposing of their cigarette waste)
cannot carry portable ‘butt bins’ with
them or create their own by placing
some soil or sand in a small tin.
But I wasn’t given a warning, surely
that is not fair?
Our education campaign in terms of the
litter problem has been continual
in recent years. Thousands of pounds
of your money has been spent on
publicity involving posters,
advertising and articles in the press, on the
radio and TV. We have also run street
theatres with actors dressed up as
litter to emphasise the anti
littering. On top of this organisation like the
Keep Britain Tidy Group do an
excellent job in helping us get the antilittering
message over. Of course all the
publicity in the world is of no
use whatsoever if the message is being
ignored. So we must take our
enforcement duties seriously as well
and back up what is a serious and
important message with real action.
This is the aim of our enforcement
patrols which seek to target those who
choose to ignore the littering laws
which the vast majority abide by.
