'Poor value' litter patrols are binned

LITTER wardens are to stop patrolling Derby's streets because the council says they have not had enough of an impact.

In the year they have been in the city, the two temporary staff have issued nine notices warning people about dropping litter but not prosecuted anyone.

At a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, deputy council leader Lucy Care said the lack of legal action meant the wardens' combined cost of £47,000 was hard to justify.

"Looking at the statistics of nine notices and no prosecutions, do people really think that's good value for money?" she said.

"I don't think we should be looking at another £47,000 being spent on that. I think there are better things we should do with that money."

The two wardens – Samantha Kelly and Claire Allen – were unable to speak about the loss of their jobs.

Richard Morgan, of the GMB union, said they were "extremely disappointed" with the decision.

"The wardens have done an excellent job and to say they have not done so because of a lack of prosecutions is ridiculous.

"Their job was to go out and educate people, not to prosecute, and that is what they have done. If we judged a police force by how many people they arrested and that number was high, we would think they were not doing their job in preventing crime and educating people."

The litter wardens were brought into action by the previous Labour administration with contracts of just a year.

But Labour group leader Chris Williamson said it had been his party's intention to continue the contracts.

"When we created the role the expectation was that, far from reducing the number, there would be a considerable increase in the number of people who were empowered to enforce action to get cleaner streets in the city," he said.

"This is a short-sighted decision and totally unjustifiable in my view."

However, council leader Hilary Jones said no funding was put into the budget for 2008-9 to pay for the wardens.

"If Labour thought the role was so vital, why did you not include it when drawing up the budget?" she said.

The wardens have been popular with business in the city centre.

Adrian Lunn volunteers at the Cancer Research shop in Albert Street. He said: "I think the wardens do a fantastic job and a thankless job.

"If we don't have litter wardens I think we will be knee-deep in litter.

"Just the thought that they are about patrolling the streets makes people think twice about dropping their rubbish."

John Sallis, owner of Hook and Eye haberdashery in Albert Street, thought the city centre was cleaner since the wardens started patrolling.

"In the past six months in particular the place has been a lot tidier," he said.