Councillor’s ‘Keep Southport tidy’crusade catches 1,000 people a year

22nd April 2017

A campaigning councillor has revealed that around 1,000 people a year have been fined or prosecuted since he launched his clampdown on the problem.

Cllr David Barton has now called for Sefton Council to step up enforcement action and patrols even further to try and eradicate the issue completely.

Official figures released by Cllr Barton for the period from June 2014 to the end of February this year show that 2,428 people across the borough received fixed penalty notices as part of the clampdown.

They included 72 people fined for dog fouling offences and 2,356 for littering.

A further 263 people were prosecuted for fly tipping and littering.

By far the worst ward in terms of offences was Cllr’s Barton’s Dukes ward, where 2,215 people received fixed penalty notices for littering and 23 were penalised for dog fouling offences.

Cllr Barton said: “I first raised the issue of dog fouling, littering, fly tipping and fly posting back in May 2014. Since that time I have reported scores of cases myself. I am also extremely grateful to all the many residents who have individually contacted me to offer their assistance and for all the relevant data they have provided including times, dates and descriptions of individuals.

“We must now re-double our efforts to build on the great work aimed at tackling this problem in the hope that this clampdown will eradicate the problems we have with this issue across the borough.”

Cllr Barton has raised the issue of retraining car parking wardens as environmental enforcement officers so that they can dedicate their time to penalising littering and dog fouling offenders.

He said: “This is not a case of one formula solving all the problems as, due to the sheer logistics of only being able to deploy nine patrols at an one time, offences such as cycling unlawfully and anti-social behaviour must be dealt with more specifically in a different way, such as the recent security initiative which was highly successful previously when it was active.”

Cllr Barton thanked Sefton Council for being so proactive in complying with his requests to support the local community and the positive boost this has provided to people of all ages across Southport, especially the local business and retail community.

He said: “I continue to liaise closely with the relevant departments to further improve Southport’s landscape and have raised valid proposals after conducting my own thorough and tested research by consulting with the actual affected people.

“Ultimately my hope to is to not only instil good habits into the people that either live or visit Southport, but aim to attract further inward investment by supporting investor confidence in an area famed for its beautiful traditional surroundings.

 


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