Council’s chewing gum clampdown
Published: June 7, 2005
The UK seems to have a patent on odd solutions to old problems. This week we reported that two North Wales country parks had started to spray dog dirt yellow. Now a Kent town has attached balloons to thrown away chewing gum (click for photo pop-up).
The Kent town has begun its part in a national pilot scheme to stop people dropping chewing gum in the street.
Maidstone Borough Council now has dedicated officers who can hand out £50 fines to anyone caught doing it.
The scheme also involves extra cleaning patrols, special pouches for people to throw their gum away, and educational initiatives like leaflets and videos.
Maidstone council was one of three local authorities chosen for the Chewing Gum Action Group scheme.
‘Really serious’
The fine enforcers are known as street environment officers and one of them, Trevor Ford, said they would adopt a zero-tolerance approach.
“When we witness someone dropping chewing gum we’ll contact CCTV to help monitor the situation and we’ll also, if necessary, issue the fixed penalty fine,” said Mr Ford.
Councillor Malcolm Robertson, Maidstone council’s cabinet member for the environment, described chewing gum as one of the town’s biggest litter problems.
“The £50 fine, possibly going up to £75 in the near future, is going to make people wake up and think, ‘look, this really is serious, I shouldn’t be doing this’,” said Mr Robertson.
Maidstone Youth Forum is also getting involved by producing a video of young people’s views on chewing gum litter.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: