Traffic Wardens to Help Protect the Environment
Last week, council members voted in favour of
giving increased powers to the town’s ‘red’ uniformed Traffic
wardens, giving them the authority to issue fixed penalty notices
for a number of anti-social environmental offences, including
littering, fly posting and defacement of property by graffiti
writing.
Cllr Alison Freer, lead member for the town
centre said: “we want a town everyone can be proud of and hope that
residents and visitors to the town will respect this initiative
which is primarily designed to deter this type behaviour”.
The intention is to introduce these powers
using a phased programme that will ensure the maximum publicity and
exposure of the wardens’ new authority over a period of weeks
throughout the Autumn leading to a well publicised date, after
which any offender caught committing any one of a number of
environmental offences such as littering, will effectively be faced
with a fixed penalty notice fine in a similar way that drivers get
a ‘parking ticket’ for committing a parking offence.
Council Waste Management officer Raman Selvon
said: ”we will be working hard to ensure the wardens’ new powers
are well understood. We are not trying to catch people out, we are
trying to keep our environment clean green and safe, and people
should understand that if they are challenged by a warden for
allegedly committing an offence, that failure to provide their name
and address correctly is in itself a separate offence”.
The phased programme will include increased
warning and deterrent signs, a press and publicity campaign, and
planned ‘dummy run’ days, when any identified offenders will be
challenged and warned that from a certain date, their
actions, if repeated and observed, will result in them being issued
a fixed penalty notice fine, or, under certain circumstances, the
issuing of an incident report, that being a report of the offence
they have been observed committing, which is then sent to the
council for them to consider if a fixed penalty notice should or
should not be issued, or if any other enforcement action is felt
necessary or required.
For more information please
contact:
Raman Selvon
Waste Management Officer
Melton Borough Council
Telephone: 01664 502 411
Email: rselvon@melton.gov.uk
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