This meeting of the Traffic, Environment & Community Safety Scrutiny Panel was scheduled to continue its review into environmental anti-social behaviour, receiving a deputation from Colas.¹

Review into Environmental Anti-Social Behaviour

This was scheduled to be the second meeting of the panel's review into environmental anti-social behaviour, following on from the previous meeting on 04 October 2024.

The meeting was scheduled to receive a deputation from Colas.

The minutes from the previous meeting of the review on 4 October 2024 were scheduled to be considered by the panel. These minutes included a presentation from Colette Hill, Assistant Director (Neighbourhoods) and David Emmett, Head of Waste Management Services, and responses to questions from the panel from the officers.

The minutes from the previous meeting also record that Councillor Brian Madgwick (Chair of the Scrutiny Panel) visited various locations in the city, and reported that he was pleased to observe that there was no problem with litter in Gunwharf Quays, Victoria Park, Port Solent and Castle Road.

He also reported areas of concern to the Panel, including: Commercial Road, Cascades Shopping Centre and Arundel Street.

The minutes from the previous meeting state that the data would show that Community Wardens do work in Paulsgrove, and record that 72 Fixed Penalty Notices had been issued in Derby Road in the three months prior to the meeting.

The minutes also included a presentation on the number of reports of unauthorised waste received by the council, broken down by location. The presentation stated that there were 1,075 reports of unauthorised waste in the top 30 locations in the city between April and September 2024, and that the most frequently reported location was Guildford Road in Fratton. This was followed by Albert Road in Southsea and Fawcett Road in Southsea. The report notes that the figures in the report represent the number of reports received, not the number of separate incidents, and gives examples of multiple reports being received about the same incident.

The report noted that the majority of incidents of unauthorised waste were reported by Community Wardens, but that in Fratton one pro-active resident reports most incidents, primarily of small pieces of litter .

The report goes on to describe a number of actions that the council takes to address flytipping, stating: It is very important to educate residents about what they can do and how they need to be responsible.

The minutes state that the council is trialling the use of signs to attempt to reduce flytipping, and quote Cllr Dave Ashmore, Cabinet Member for Environmental Services, who explained that signs have been put up informing people that fly tippers will be prosecuted , giving the example of a sign near the recycling bins in the Asda car park in The Bridge Shopping Centre that says If not in the bin, it's fly tipping.

The report states that cleaning around all the bring banks costs £25,000 and that the income the council receives from the textile recycling banks makes up 0.5% of the council's recycling rates .

The minutes state that there will be more campaigns explaining how to dispose of waste responsibly on social media targeted to certain postcodes, letter drops, more signage and articles in Flagship[^2] .

The minutes conclude by describing how the panel expressed their sincere gratitude to everyone engaged in keeping the city clean .

Also included for consideration were responses to a survey of all councillors on what they thought of the council's waste services.

Councillor Lee Hunt, Cabinet Member for Community Safety, Leisure & Sport wrote to the panel to argue that clothes recycling banks should not be removed, claiming that they contribute 35 tonnes of recycling every month and that the amount of recycling collected from them amounts to half a percent of the total amount collected. He goes on to say that recycling bins [are] monitored by re-deployable CCTV cameras to deter and detect fly tipping and that the advantage considerably heavily outweighs the relatively small cost of any cleaning the areas around the bins. He attached a number of photos of clothes recycling bins to his email.

Also included for discussion was a breakdown of the number of reports about street cleansing issues received by Colas over the previous 5 years, which showed that there had been a significant drop in the year to September 2024.

Finally, a document was circulated to the meeting that contained Colas' responses to a number of questions posed to them by the panel. The questions related to the type, trends, hotspots and specific issues relating to litter and unauthorised waste in Portsmouth. In its responses, Colas said that they sweep all litter but do not record its type, that the main problem areas are outside shops and pubs and that it does not hold trend data for litter.