News / br
Once you pop, you can’t stop £500 litter fine
A Lawrence Weston man has been forced to pop up £500 after Bristol City Council fined him for dropping the lid from a Pringles can on the pavement.
Gareth Daniel, 31, of Humberstan Walk was fined £200, and ordered to pay costs of £278.75 and a £20 victim surcharge in his absence by Bristol Magistrates’ Court.
He was fined by a Police Community Support Officer in April when he was spotted dropping the lid at Stile Acres.
He was given a £75 fixed penalty notice but ignored demands for payment, leading to yesterday’s court action.
The council’s Street Scene Enforcement Team officer Shaun Pine said: “This successful prosecution sends a clear message to people – we will not tolerate littering on any scale.”
With the severity of the punishment sure to be questioned, assistant mayor for neighbourhoods, Cllr Gus Hoyt, admitted the ‘Barmy Council’ story was “obviously going to be on the front page of the Daily Mail.
But he defended the prosecution, saying clearing up litter costed the city millions of pounds a year.
“The truth of the matter is no one likes people who litter and Mr Daniel was fined £75. His failure to pay the fine resulted in him being taken to court which has now resulted in a much larger fine. I have no knowledge of his personal situation but am assuming the court would have taken this into consideration,” he said.
“The council spends £14million a year on clearing all types of waste, from litter to fly tipping – small items all add to that clearance cost, a cost which inevitably falls to the taxpayer most of whom haven’t caused the mess.
“Ridingleaze has to be cleaned regularly to prevent an unbearable build-up of litter, including cigarette butts, sweet wrappers and crisp packets, and this is far from unique. We must tackle the problem to make our city a better place to live.
“Our parks team does an excellent job of clearing litter from around Lawrence Weston, but people seem to think it is acceptable to still drop litter.”
Picture: Emka74 / Shutterstock.com
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