Canterbury City Council’s Environmental Crime Officers delivered a stern warning to two Herne Bay residents this month, slapping them with £200 fines each for littering. The message to serial dumpers is clear: your days of blighting Herne Bay High Street are numbered.
For too long, residents and businesses in the Herne Bay High Street area have endured the disgusting aftermath of domestic and commercial waste dumped illegally. Foxes and seagulls tear open bags, scattering rubbish across roads and pavements, creating an unsightly and unsanitary mess. But, the council has now decided enough is enough and last month, in a targeted operation, officers descended on Herne Bay at 4am on consecutive mornings to investigate the overnight dumping and identify the culprits. Two residents were caught in the act and swiftly issued fixed penalty notices for their blatant disregard for the community.
This is no one-off and Canterbury City Council has vowed to continue its hard-hitting approach. Officers will be making unannounced early morning visits in the coming weeks and months, determined to catch and fine any other individuals or businesses responsible for turning Herne Bay’s streets into a dumping ground and culprits can consider this a final warning: clean up your act, or face the consequences.
Cllr Connie Nolan, Cabinet Member for Community Engagement, Safety and Enforcement, said:
“When people don’t follow the rules around putting their rubbish out at the right time, everyone else suffers. Being faced with putrid piles of waste every morning must be disheartening and affect your quality of life. That is especially true for the crews from our waste contractor Canenco who have to clear it all up by hand day after day after day. Our officers specialising in environmental crime are early birds and will be back – if they catch you in the act, you will also be fined £200 and rightly so. For those businesses not disposing of their waste legitimately, we will be checking on them too.”
The rules for people living near the High Street and businesses operating in the area are:
- domestic waste should only be put out in council-issued purple sacks
- domestic rubbish day in the High Street is on Tuesdays – rubbish should not be put out before 5pm on Mondays except on bank holidays when changes to the normal arrangements are heavily publicised
- businesses need to arrange for a commercial waste contractor to take their rubbish away
If residents are struggling to store their waste, they need to talk to their landlords. Residents can always report a missed collection on the council’s website where they can also report littering and flytipping.