Fines not fairest system for punishing litterbugs

MOST people would likely agree that something ought to be done to address the problem of litter on our streets.

Cynical folk may, however, suspect that in much the same way as the introduction of bus gates might not really have been about improving road safety, the aim of the appointment of litter police may be about making as much money as possible.

While it can be said with some justification that if someone can’t afford a £75 fine then they shouldn’t drop litter, there have been numerous reported cases where people have been fined for the most trivial of ‘offences.’

For example, a retired civil servant was fined by Ealing Council for pouring coffee down a drain because she didn’t want to fill the waste bin with coffee.

After this case made the newspapers the council quite rightly waived the fine and apologised.

I very much hope I’m wrong, but I fear what will happen is that the litter police will go after the easy targets while the worst offences will go unpunished.

Will the litter police really be hanging around outside some of the more rowdy pubs in our town centre on a Saturday night, ready to pounce on drunks throwing away litter? Somehow I doubt it. The whole system of fines seems unfair to me.

A fine of £75 for what might be a minor transgression is a heck of a lot of money for some, but yet this amount can mean next to nothing for very wealthy people.

I would like the punishment to be a bit more radical so everyone regardless of their class or income face the same consequences of their actions.

Instead of a fine, how about someone caught throwing chewing gum on the floor, for example, having to spend an hour or so cleaning gum off the streets?

A method such as this would initially be more costly as the offenders would probably need to be supervised, but it might work and would surely be fairer.