Council'slitter plea

Mr Herbert is the Member of Parliament for Arundel and South Downs, as well as being Minister of State for Policing and Criminal Justice.

Currently, fixed penalty notices can be issued to anyone over 14 caught dropping litter, but the individual concerned has to be properly identified. In practice, this makes it very difficult to ensure that littering laws are enforced.

Cllr Robert Nye, leader of Horsham District Council, said: “For many vehicle related offences such as speeding, seat belt wearing and parking the registered keeper of the vehicle is ultimately responsible. Unfortunately this is not the case for littering and we can only issue a fixed penalty notice if we can properly identify the person who dropped the material.

“I have written to Nick Herbert asking him if the law in this respect can be changed so that when we have evidence of littering we can issue fixed penalty notices to the vehicle’s owner.”

He said litter is a problem for all local authorities and that being able to issue fixed penalty notices to car owners would be a significant deterrent.

Horsham District Council spends over £400,000 sweeping and a litter picking the 205 square miles of the district each year.