Why councils can't simply brush aside local litter problems

DO YOU remember the days when, every so often, you'd look out the window and see a council worker sweeping litter and dust from the pavement and shovelling it into an aluminium portable dustbin?

This was a sentiment shared by a group of residents in an Edinburgh suburb as they watched, with mounting despair, litter accumulate on the pavement and roadway outside their homes.

Being community-minded, their first instinct was to organise their own hit squad to clean up the mess. But several of them were not exactly in the first flush of youth and, though their minds may have been willing, their bodies were not able to do the job properly.

Also, they recalled that the street-sweeping service had been cut without any diminution in council tax to compensate so, understandably, they were not inclined to take on the job themselves as a matter of principle. Upstanding citizens all of them may have been, but they were not prepared to be taken for mugs.

I became involved after a petition to Edinburgh city council to tackle the problem met without success. Initially, I thought this one would be a hard nut to crack, but some digging discovered the Environmental Protection Act 1990, section 89 of which requires a local authority to ensure that the land within its designated area is, "so far as is practicable, kept clear of litter and refuse".

This applies to every "public road other than a trunk road", which effectively covers most streets and open places.

If such a place is covered in litter, then a member of the public can complain under section 91(5). Before instituting proceedings under this section, "the complainant shall give to the (local authority] not less than five days' written notice of his intention to make the complaint and the notice shall specify the matter complained of".

The council then has to clean up the area, and if it fails to do so the complainant has the option to go to court for a Litter Abatement Order.

Under section 91(6), "if the court is satisfied that the highway or land in question is defaced by litter or refuse" or, in the case of a highway, "is wanting in cleanliness", the court has the power to make an abatement order requiring the defendant to clear away the litter or refuse or, as the case may be, clean the highway within a specified time.

I submitted a preliminary complaint to the council on behalf of the residents, and when this was ignored, an application was made under the act.

This seemed suddenly to exercise minds wonderfully at the City Chambers; no sooner had the application been served than workmen were dispatched to the location and the offending litter cleared away. The council also agreed to pay the residents' legal expenses.

So the moral is clear: where streets and pavements are blighted by public litter and refuse because of inaction or indifference by the local authority, it is not necessary for residents to reach for their own brushes and shovels. The law is on their side.

• Richard Godden is a partner in McKay Norwell WS, Edinburgh.