Graffiti and litter blight has made city ‘urban slum’

Councillor’s fury at ‘failure’ to stop culprits

Canterbury has been branded an “urban slum” by a city councillor, furious at the “failure” to tackle litter and graffiti. Nick Eden-green’s comments came during a tirade at a meeting of the Canterbury Forum. But council enforcement manager Lacy Dixon said the authority and the police have “upped the ante” regarding graffiti. She revealed enforcement officers handed out 124 fixed penalty notices for littering, urinating and fly-tipping between January and November last year.

“We had one report that led to a police investigation and an arrest, we’ve had five adult cautions, we’ve had a police notice for disorder and two community resolutions,” she added. But Cllr Eden-green (Lib Dem) said the results are “nothing to be proud of”.

“That’s about 40 per officer, per year,” he said. “That’s less than one a week.

“It’s shocking. It’s an indictment of failure.”

He said that while that graffiti had got worse, the council’s response was just to have “further initiatives”. “These blandishments about what we are and aren’t doing are just that,” he added.

“We don’t litter and we don’t graffiti, but it’s our job to clear it up. And we’re just not doing it. “We’ve completely lost the plot. You’ve only got to look around Canterbury to see it, whether it’s litter or graffiti. “It is absolutely dire, and I’m deeply embarrassed about being a Wincheap councillor, living in an urban slum.”

For safety reasons, staff at the council’s waste contractor Serco are only able to collect litter along roads of less than 30mph without a closure in place. But Cllr Eden-green dismissed this as “absolute nonsense”. “Residents do this regularly on their litter picks,” he said at the meeting on January 13. “It’s crazy that we can’t do it ourselves.

“If the only way to get litter picked up is to have a 30mph limit everywhere, let’s have a 30mph limit everywhere and get the litter picked up.” He proposed that on faster roads, litter should be gathered while closures are already in place for pothole repairs. “That is a simple bit of liaison work,” he said. “Whenever there’s a lane closure on the A2 for whatever reason, get a litter pick team out. Simple stuff.”

City council spokesman Rob Davies said: “We can only work alongside Highways England when they allow us to and when they have the right road closures in place - this is their decision and not ours. “The opportunities to piggyback on their closures are therefore limited, but we have regular meetings with them and this is always discussed.” People who litter pick on roads where the speed limit is greater than 30mph do so at their own risk, he added.

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