UK NEWS

NOW COUNCIL SNOOPS HAVE POWER TO ISSUE £300 FINES

Bins in wrong places could get you a fine

Friday October 9,2009

By Laura Clout

THOUSANDS of families face council fines of up to £300 for a raft of new “offences” including leaving a car engine running or failing to move a dustbin quickly enough.

Officers employed by Nottingham City Council will be able to hand out fixed penalty notices of between £50 and £300 for a range of new misdemeanours, including smoking in the wrong place and putting up posters on traffic signs.

But critics claim the powers are draconian and will penalise otherwise law-abiding citizens for minor mistakes like forgetting to take in their wheelie bin within 24 hours.

They also point out that the fines are potentially lucrative, at a time when the recession is hitting revenue from car parking charges and planning fees.

But the council insists the widening of the scheme is a response to public opinion.

Richard Antcliff, the council’s chief anti-social behaviour officer, said: “When we survey people, the things that trouble them most are not robbery, burglary and other crimes, but the low-level anti-social, rubbish and grime stuff. This allows us to tackle day-to-day annoyances.”

The city has 100 uniformed Community Protection Officers (CPOs) who work alongside the police to deal with low-level anti-social behaviour and minor offences.

But Mr Antcliff said this power was aimed at tackling a specific problem of taxis waiting in non-allocated areas. He said: “What we have found is that at key times the taxi bays will get filled and then the taxis will start to wait on the road itself, causing blockages.”

The revelations come just a week after the city said a ban on street drinking, involving fixed penalty notices and fines of up to £500, could be in force next year.

Some Scottish councils, including Glasgow, have previously drawn up proposals to impose on-the-spot fines on motorists who leave their engines running, in a bid to clean up air quality. Other moves to target drivers include charging owners of high-polluting vehicles for entering designated areas.

Glasgow City Council has already committed to providing so-called Low Emission Zones for the Commonwealth Games in 2014.

Four years ago officials in Edinburgh were embarrassed when it emerged that a crackdown on drivers who unnecessarily left their engines running had failed to fine anyone at all in its first year.

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