Take in wheelie bins or face fines, residents told

A six-month pilot scheme has been approved to encourage people in a historic town centre to stop leaving their wheelie bins out on the street.

Tewkesbury Borough Council has identified about 200 bins that are continually left out, leading to concerns that so-called "bin blight" was spoiling the town centre, devaluing properties and blocking pavements for wheelchairs and pushchairs.

The trial will see help offered to persistent offenders to store bins, but fixed penalty notices could be issued as a last resort.

Rachel North, director of communities, said: "There is no intension to deliberately target people who are being reasonable in their behaviour."

A total of £30,000 has been put aside to fund the pilot project, which will focus initially on a small number of key heritage streets within the town centre, with a dedicated project officer appointed to work with residents.

A range of alternative waste collection and storage measures will also be offered to residents, including "seagull-proof"sacks, smaller bins where appropriate and additional bins for residents with two or more children in nappies.

North said the council had already seen "a sizeable change in behaviour" and is expecting enforcement to be "relatively low".

"If it's permanently there and there's somewhere you can put it and you haven't done anything to work with us to try and find a solution, that's when we might think about a fixed penalty notice," she said.

A working group was set up by the council to address the issue after it received a petition from Tewkesbury Civic Society, signed by more than 230 people.

Alan Purkiss, chair of the society, welcomed the trial and said the council had taken "a very reasonable response" and was confident people would "respond accordingly".

"It's a very positive reaction. They have come up with a sensible response to the petition," he said.

"It's a very visible problem in the main streets of a town that is advertised strongly for it's beauty and architectural history, why spoil it?

"The borough has spent a lot of money, very generously, improving shop fronts in the town and up to now have allowed it to be spoilt by bins, so it's a correcting process."

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