The elected mayor of Watford, Peter Taylor, has said the borough council has to be “careful” about the way it handles enforcement after only one littering fine was issued in almost six years.
A BBC report published last month found that Watford Borough Council had issued a single £75 littering fine since 2020/21.
But Liberal Democrat Mr Taylor told councillors at a meeting on Tuesday, January 27, that the council should be wary of the possible consequences of using a private company to ramp up the number of fines issued.
Nearby Dacorum Borough Council handed out more than 2,400 littering fines in both 2022/23 and 2023/24 after contracting a company to issue fines on its behalf.
Mr Taylor said the use of private companies could “skew” the statistics and that the private company’s “entire income comes from generating fines”.
“We’ve got to be careful about going down that route. But we want enforcement, and we want to make sure we have a clean town,” he said.
Mr Taylor was responding to a question from Cllr Nigel Bell, Labour group leader, who said that residents want to see “everything used that we can” to tackle fly-tipping and suggested “there’s some talk by residents that maybe we’re not doing enough”.
Mr Taylor replied: “All of us want to live in a town where there’s less littering. We’ve increased the fine for littering and … [our budget] increases the number of people who work in enforcing these rules so that we tackle fly-tipping, littering, and dog fouling.
“The other thing that we do really well with Veolia is proactive work.
“We don’t want people to litter or fly tip in the first place, and there’s a lot of work that goes on about raising awareness about issues.
“For example, in some countries, it’s expected that you’d put household waste next to a litter bin; that’s just part of the way that rubbish is collected. In this country, we don’t encourage that, and sometimes there’s work to educate local communities on that.”
Littering fines in Watford rose in 2024 from £75 to £250, but no fines have been issued since that date.
The council’s budget for 2026/27, which was unanimously approved by Liberal Democrat and Labour councillors, includes an additional £95,000 to tackle fly-tipping and littering.
The money will be spent on expanding the environmental protection team and carrying out extra litter-picking on “high speed roads”.
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