Litter

LITTER louts are being named and shamed in a drive to keep the streets of Greater Manchester clean.

Councils in Manchester, Bury and Stockport have turned to the web to publish details of offenders.

Litterbugs caught dropping any type of waste can be hit with a fixed penalty notice. Those who fail to pay the fine can be prosecuted in court and fined hundreds of pounds.

Stockport is the latest council to take on the idea of naming and shaming offenders online.

Anyone now refusing to pay the £75 fixed penalty fine and convicted in court will have their name and address published on the council's website.

A new team of officers is spearheading the clean up drive, which has the message `waste will not be tolerated'.

It comes weeks after a man and woman, both from Reddish, were fined £334 each at Stockport magistrates following separate incidents of littering.

The man was in his car outside a pie shop and seen to throw several wrappers under the vehicle. The woman was seen dropping cigarette wrappers and walking off.

Stockport council's Stuart Jackson said: "The council takes littering offences very seriously and we will issue a fixed penalty notice to anyone caught dropping litter. It is a disgusting, anti-social habit."

Details of people convicted of a littering offence will also be sent to the local media.

Bury and Manchester have already introduced `name and shame' schemes in a bid to cut down on litter louts.

A spokeswoman for Bury council said: "We get a lot of complaints and we want the people of Bury to know we take this seriously. If we name and shame then hopefully they will not do it again."

Other Greater Manchester councils do not have a policy of publicising details of people convicted of litter offences.

But the M.E.N revealed in February how Oldham had introduced a scheme where litter louts were given the option of paying the fine or spending a day sweeping the streets.

The first person to take part was Gary Stevenson, from Delph, who was caught dropping chip wrappers.

This month the M.E.N reported how Samuel Grundy, 23, of Edmund Street, Seedley, Salford, was hauled before the courts and fined £200, plus £215 costs, after pleading guilty to littering and knowingly giving false details to an officer after being tracked down using CCTV.