Action to fight litter louts and fly tippers in Blackpool neighbourhoods

Grass roots funding is to be used to tackle nuisance behaviour including litter louting, dog fouling and fly-tipping in parts of Blackpool.

Councillors representing the inner areas of Bloomfield, Brunswick, Talbot and Tyldesley are each putting £10,000 of their ward budget towards employing a neighbourhood environmental enforcement officer.

The pot of cash totalling £40,000 will be used to implement the scheme for 12 months from September.

The four wards involved cover some of the most densely populated areas of the town.

A council spokesman said: "With a high density population throughout the wards, with a mix of commercial businesses including tourism and domestic including HMOs, waste litter and dog fouling are all common themes discussed at constituents' door steps.

"While the core services may provide adequate cover to react to each of the reported incidents, there is a lack of resource to provide pro-active and directed resource to the wards.

"The introduction of a dedicated officer will offer an opportunity to bring about a change in behaviour through education and enforcement."

It is hoped the scheme will reduce the number of hot spots where residents report repeated problems by tackling issues before they get out of hand.

The officer is being recruited at the moment and their role will include handing out fines for dropping litter, dog fouling and fly tipping and responding more quickly to complaints including fly tipping and graffiti.

The funding is coming from the ward budgets of councillors Graham Cain and Jim Hobson (Bloomfield), Simon Blackburn and Gary Coleman (Brunswick), Ian Coleman and Mark Smith (Talbot) and David Collett and Alan Matthews (Tyldesley).

Blackpool Council has recently undertaken a series of initiatives to try and reduce environmental nuisance.

This included a one year pilot scheme with civil enforcement company 3GS Environmental Enforcement Solutions to hand out on-the-spot fines in Blackpool, which ended last October.

The council’s own staff have since taken over the role.

Collecting litter costs councils nationally an estimated £680m a year.