BLAENAU Gwent councillor John Hopkins has urged the council to pursue people who fail to pay fines given out during a controversial scheme to crackdown on litter louts and those allowing their pets to foul the streets.

More than 800 fixed-penalty notices have been handed out since October 3 – together worth more than £60,000 – but so far only 50 per cent of these have been paid, councillors in Blaenau Gwent were told this week.

The council began the controversial six-month pilot project with private firm XFOR in October last year with enforcement officers issuing people with £75 fines for littering and allowing dog fouling.

A report, written in January, was delivered to the council’s executive committee on Wednesday, saying the payment rate at that time stood at just 40 per cent.

As a result, the council now plans to review the current fines, consider a reduced payment for early settlement, and prepare for legal action against those who fail to pay up.

Executive Member for Crime, Disorder and Safer Communities Councillor John Hopkins said: “I’m going to move these proposals to pursue those who have not paid because our credibility would be in question if we were collecting 40 per cent and letting others get away with it.”

The report said reasons for the low number of payments could include high unemployment and low incomes.

But a spokeswoman for Blaenau Gwent Council stressed yesterday the payment rate had already risen from 40 to 50 per cent since the report to the executive was written, and that “ultimately everyone will be prosecuted if they don’t pay the initial fixed penalty fine”.

XFOR chief executive Gary Lincoln-Hope said identical schemes in other parts of the UK which have progressed from pilot schemes to permanent contracts have an average payment rate of 85 per cent.

He added: “This is an initial implementation and settling-down issue rather than a flawed tactic.”

Five XFOR staff work across Blaenau Gwent, fining people for littering and allowing dog fouling. Two officers are paid an hourly rate and pass the full £75 fine to the council, while three others issue fines where £45 goes to XFOR and £30 to the council.

Street scheme is falling apart

WE PRAISED last year’s introduction of Blaenau Gwent’s on-the-spot fine system for litter louts and people who allow their dogs to foul the streets.

Despite criticism from some quarters that the action was heavy-handed, we believed that the issuing of £75 fines would deter the litterers and lead to cleaner streets for all.

And given that what inspired the launch of the scheme was that Blaenau Gwent was considered by Keep Wales Tidy as having some of the dirtiest streets in Wales, such stringent action seemed necessary.

So it is with some dismay that we hear so many of the fines are going uncollected and that there are some within the council who fear the scheme, operated by a private company, lacks credibility.

Only last month everything seemed to look positive for the scheme.

Fines worth £45,000 had been dished out to 600 people in just three months for either dropping litter or allowing their dogs to foul.

Now it appears that 50 per cent of those fines have gone uncollected, which threatens to weaken its effectiveness both as a deterrent and as a self-funding scheme and that is a crying shame.