Former Sunderland Mayor and Seaburn resident, Barry Curran, has pledged to fight for a ‘more proactive approach’ in dealing with the problems of litter and fly-tipping along the Seaburn and Roker seafronts.
Barry Curran, who is standing to represent Labour in Fulwell ward, believes that the public must be left with ‘no easy excuses for leaving their litter on Sunderland’s beaches’. He has said that more regular rubbish collections from the seafront, with the bins being emptied multiple times a day during busy periods, will ensure that people can no longer excuse littering.
“We have all seen the reports about large amounts of rubbish being left on our beaches and beauty spots. These incidents not only create an unsightly blot on our landscapes, but also attract vermin, such as mice, rats and seagulls,” said Barry.
“Full bins are no justification for leaving litter on the beach, but we must ensure that we give people no excuses. We have to be more proactive in dealing with these problems, rather than wait until after the events and then react to them. People must understand that if a litter bin is full, they should seek out one that isn’t, or take their litter home. But we do need to remove any possible excuse – and ensure that where people still discard their litter irresponsibly, we use our enforcement powers.”
After the recent mini heatwave and the relaxing of lockdown restrictions, media reports suggested that many areas were strewn with all types of discarded rubbish, including plastic bottles, beer bottles and cans, half empty food wrappers, cardboard boxes, clothing and in some cases tents. Very few areas of outstanding beauty escaped this antisocial behaviour.
Barry added: “I have had discussions with the leader of the council, Councillor Graeme Miller and the Portfolio Member responsible. We have carried out inspections of these areas to see the best course of action on how to tackle these problems.
“While we don’t want our city to become the surveillance capital of the UK, if mobile or fixed CCTV cameras have to be installed to achieve our aims, then we will seriously look at doing this. We hope our actions will, in the long term, see a reduction in such incidents.”
It has been suggested that the extra cost of these enforcement and cleansing measures should be borne by those that are creating these problems, through a zero-tolerance policy and looking to increasing the level of fines for both littering and fly-tipping.
“Trying to purely educate people about the adverse effects of discarding litter and fly-tipping has not been enough. It was right to try this, but ultimately, we have to look at taking a more forceful approach.
“We have to increase the number of wardens patrolling these areas – wardens with powers to issue fines to those who, by their selfish actions, create this unsightly mess. We need to look at providing more or larger litter bins along the seafront areas and instigate a more frequent and focused service of litter bin emptying and street cleaning, so that our city is as clean and tidy as possible.”
Measures have already been agreed by the council to increase action to tackle this problem and Barry Curran feels that the Seaburn and Roker seafront area has to be one of the main priorities.
“We have beautiful beaches, but a small minority of people are ruining them. We have to tackle this problem once and for all, and our seafront has to be a major focus.”