Zero tolerance

An enforcement officer issued a fixed penalty notice of £80 to a pensioner for dropping a tissue.

The pensioner explained that he had had a very bad sneezing fit and had discarded the tissue due to there being no bins being around and the tissue being too sodden to place in his pocket. The pensioner was then issued with the fine.

He was so alarmed that he paid the fine the very same day as he had never been fined for anything and was in a state of shock. He wrote a letter to the council the next day but has not received any reply.

I agree that the litter situation in Runcorn needs to be addressed.

However, there is a substantial difference between dropping a tissue to the amount of dog dirt, empty fast food containers etc which litter the streets.

It appears that the enforcement officer concerned chose an ‘easy target’ to obviously gain his brownie points.

The chief executive of Halton Council does not see anything wrong with issuing this fixed penalty notice which is quite alarming.

Name and address supplied

In response to the above letter, a Halton Council spokesman said:

THE council is committed to improving the overall appearance of the borough.

Our enforcement policy and the associated fine, which is a set amount, are helping us deliver this improvement.

However there is still more to do as some residents still consider it is appropriate to drop litter.

The council has a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to those who are caught littering the borough.

This approach has the support of many residents of Halton.

It would be wrong to apply a differential approach based on age.

Littering is littering and is not acceptable whoever does it or however they do it.

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