Tackling the problem of litter will always remain a priority for members of the council

Mar 12 2009 by Our Correspondent, West Lothian Courier

I WRITE in response to the letter which was published in the Courier edition of Thursday, March 5 regarding litter near the River Almond.

The writer made several valid points in his letter and I can assure him that West Lothian Council takes the problem of litter throughout the whole of the county very seriously.

As everyone in West Lothian knows, litter isn't something that occurs through nature.

Unfortunately, it’s man-made and despite the actions of the council, a minority of people in the area continue to break the law and act inappropriately by littering.

I’m sure everyone would appreciate that, despite the best efforts of the council, it can be difficult to keep all areas clean and tidy at all times.

However, last year, West Lothian Council spent approximately £2.1 million on street cleansing and our dedicated staff work hard to tackle litter in all areas.

Our resources are deployed in line with the Environmental Protection Act and the subsequent duty of care it places on the council.

This determines the priority the council must give to cleansing publicly owned land, roads and verges.

High Street areas must be given a quicker response time to bring them back to an acceptable standard than general open spaces in less densely populated areas.

This is why we have dedicated staff based in town centres and mobile teams to cover other areas.

The problem of litter also increases during periods of frost and snowfall, as we have had recently.

During such times it is more difficult to collect litter, paths are not mechanically swept (since this would remove any grit that had been placed to aid pedestrians), and litter-picking staff are redeployed to keep the road network clear of snow and ice.

Given the recent thaw, the litter has been revealed, and council staff have had to re-double their efforts over the recent weeks to clean up.

The area referred to by Mr Kinsman in his letter, nearby the River Almond, is already on the council’s priority list and our street cleansing team will visit the area in the near future.

The council accepts that simply continuing to cleanse areas does not deal with the root cause of littering and has employed Environmental Wardens to encourage responsible behaviour and to take enforcement action against those they witness offending.

Our team of Environment Wardens have recently been awarded a national award by Keep Scotland Beautiful for their efforts in combating litter, which was also highlighted in last week’s Courier.

I would personally like to praise staff for their services.

We have also recognised that there is a need to continually review how our resources are deployed and are working on a litter policy.

The litter policy will explain what our responsibilities are, encourage better partnership working with communities, businesses and other agencies and maximise our education and enforcement campaigns.

Robert De Bold, Executive Councillor for the Environment.