Call for action with Portsmouth residents “ashamed” about the amount of rubbish, fly-tipping, dog fouling and bins left on their streets

The council passed a notice of motion during a full council meeting yesterday (March 19) motion tabled by Councillor Charlotte Gerada, leader of the Labour group who said streets need to be cleaner to make residents “feel a sense of pride in Portsmouth again” and to boost tourism and the local economy. Throughout her speech, members were passed images of fly-tipping incidents in Fratton ward.

She shared some of her conversations with local residents, including an elderly man who, after living on his road for 50 years, started taking a longer route to walk his granddaughter to school. Another resident, who uses a mobility scooter, complained that she couldn’t travel down her street due to bins blocking the pavement.

The Southsea councillor added that while fly-tipping incidents are dealt with “very quickly” by the council’s environmental services, she found that broken glass and dog fouling can take days, sometimes weeks to clean up adding: “It’s not good enough”. The motion calls for a review of fly-tipping hotspots, finding ways to prevent residents from leaving their bins on the street. It also seeks solutions from Colas, the highway maintenance company, and a review of graffiti hotspots.

The cabinet member for environmental services, Cllr Dave Ashmore, welcomed the motion in principle but sought to change it to reflect the work the council is currently doing with the Liberal Democrat member clarifying that the council has an enforcement policy to ensure residents take their bins in after collection, which if not adhered to could result in their bins being taken away. He told the chamber he had a meeting with Colas recently asking them to allocate more resources to areas that get the most reports.

He then shared the work of the council’s graffiti team highlighting that over the last 12 months, the team had received a total of 236 reports. Out of these, 67 reports were dealt with by the community wardens, 55 were handled by the graffiti removal team, 17 were passed on to Colas, and 16 cases received no response from the landowner.

Councillor Lee Hunt accused Cllr Gerada of creating a “dystopian” view of Portsmouth while making it seem like “nothing” has been done by the council. The Liberal Democrat member mentioned initiatives like mobile CCTV cameras in Nelson ward to catch out fly-tippers, he added that environmental services and community wardens do a “darn good job”. He then labelled the motion as a way to damage the council’s reputation ahead of the local election in May. This was seconded by Conservative councillor Matthew Atkins who described it as “electioneering”.

In response, Cllr Gerada invited Hunt to look at certain streets where “it does look like a fly-tipping dystopia”. “It’s not the fault of the council that this happens – there are a small minority of people who are intent on putting rubbish wherever they like and not thinking about it.”

The motion, with the amendments proposed by Cllr Ashmore, was passed.