Fine the council when it drops litter

9:34am Wednesday 20th August 2008

I READ with interest the "new powers' that the council has to "crack down" on littering, one of which being the power to issue a fixed-penalty notice.

I take it therefore that the same would apply in reverse.

By that I mean that as one of the council tax paying residents who pays the wages of our "public servants" (although the way they act totally belies this), I should be able to issue my own fixed-penalty notice on the council for dropping litter and leaving a very unsightly mess virtually every time they come to remove my rubbish.

I assume it would be the council that should be held responsible for the actions of the litter collectors, as they are the employers.

I'm sure that were I to be seen by a local "revenue raiser" dropping a piece of litter, then I would be instantly fined, therefore the reverse must also be true.

After all, what is sauce for the goose......

The only problem of course, is that any monies obtained from the council in this fashion (and rest assured it should happen), comes from the public purse and therefore would not have any great effect, apart from the publicity.

A far better solution would be to clock up every such incident and at the end of the year, publicly deduct monies from the inflated salaries that these people receive.

This would effectively show the hard pressed council tax payers that firstly , something is being done and secondly, it is not coming out of their money, but out of the salaries of the people that allowed it to happen.

With this system in place, I suspect that the efficiency ratings would strangely enough, suddenly improve.

Colin Harvey, Davenham Close, Malvern.

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