Butt it’s fine to litter in Biddulph

Discarding a cigarette butt on a Biddulph street has cost a woman over £400.

The woman, from Congleton, was fined in her absence for throwing down her cigarette on the pavement outside a shop on Lawton Street in Biddulph by Stafford magistrates after a Staffordshire Moorlands District Council enforcement officer witnessed      the incident earlier this year. She was fined £200 and ordered to pay £200.82 in costs and a victim surcharge of £20.

Councillor Gill Burton, cabinet member for communities at the District Council, said: “We know that Moorlands residents place a high value on keeping their environment clean and well looked after and litter does result in a significant number of complaints to the council. This has proved to be an expensive cigarette but whilst one butt may seem like a small item of litter, the cumulative impact of people littering in this way is considerable. Smoking related litter can be especially difficult to clean up because the small filters can fall into grates or the gaps between paving stone or cobbles. It’s really important that people recognise the effect their thoughtless actions can have and I hope that prosecutions such as this reinforce the message that we will not tolerate such behaviour in the Moorlands.”

Over 900 tonnes of litter was cleared from the district last year at a cost of over £50,000. Members of the public complained about litter offences 1,035 times between June 2012 and May 2013.