Big commercial waste bins are a blight on Bathgate streets

Bathgate’s streets are being blighted by huge commercial waste bins left out on pavement and open spaces like the Steelyard.

Cllr Willie Boyle called on the council to look for a solutions and suggested fines could be imposed on businesses. And fellow SNP councillor for the town, Pauline Stafford said the bins “seriously degrade the public space.”

A meeting of West Lothian Council agreed to a motion raised by Cllr Boyle. “West Lothian is seeing a problem with commercial waste containers cluttering streets and pavements in our towns and villages. This is a real problem and it needs to be tackled. There’s an opportunity to actually enforce this and impose fines.”

“Where there is an obvious requirement for commercial waste disposal the demand is not being managed in a respectful way to complement the efforts to keep our streets attractive to customers and new businesses.

“Large waste containers, which can be over 1000 litres in size, are regularly left out on the pavements and streets as a permanent fixture. There are no restrictions in planning terms specific to the placing of these bins.”

He added that in other local authorities restrictions have already been put in place to address such matters. Where there is no off street storage, containers should be restricted to standard two wheel “wheelie” bins of 240 or 360 litres. These, or smaller containers, can be taken into premises overnight and not left out on the streets. Businesses should no longer be permitted to permanently store their waste containers in public.”