€430,000 raised through pilot CCTV litter scheme
LOUTH County Council has collected close to half a million euro from littering fines issued as a result of of a pilot CCTV project at bring bank sites and other locations throughout the area, it has been revealed.
Executive Engineer Mark John so said throughout the county as a whole, including Drogheda and Dundalk, €430,000 was raised from detections made thanks to the CCTV cameras so far with more fines due to be issued in the coming weeks.
He told councillors at the December meeting of Drogheda Municipal District the cameras had been in place over a three month period in August, September and October this year at various locations throughout Drogheda including the bring banks at Palace Street and The Ramparts.
The cameras were part of a pilot scheme at bring banks under an anti-dumping initiative.
He said a large number of detections were made when number plates and images were captured on the cameras.
Mr Johnson was responding to a query raised by Councillor Joanna Byrne who asked how much the funding for this was and if the project had been a success.
He said the council have up to six months to issue the fines and revealed the cameras have been a big success, capturing hi-resolution images of cars and people dropping off bags of litter.
The engineer said the council are hopeful of securing funding and repeating the scheme in 2020.
‘It is something we’ll do again next year and we’ll get funding from the Department, all going well,’ he said. ‘It is quite expensive to fun. It costs €8,000 a month and there are a lot of cameras so it is quite labourious and labour intensive.’