COUNCILLORS in Ulverston are kicking up a stink about the amount of litter in the town.

Coun Phil Lister told members that while walking to the council chamber on Queen Street from his home on Lightburn Avenue he counted more than 100 pieces of litter on Monday night.

"I didn't count anything smaller than a cigarette packet and among the litter was branches, a tyre, bottles and cans. It doesn't surprise me that the litter exists and I am not looking to blame anyone as most people do clean up after themselves. What does concern me is what mechanism the district council has got in place to clean it up."

Cleansing and transport services manager at South Lakeland District Council, Lawrence Conway, was

at the town council meeting

to listen to councillors' concerns.

He said: "I take it on board and I don't disagree with some of the comments that have been made but changes are being made. Until recently we have worked on a scheduled basis so street cleaning operatives were given a list of what areas they were to clean on what days.

"That now is about to change and instead they will be told to go where there is the greatest need so we can make a bigger impact."

Coun Janette Jenkinson said there was also a problem in the town with weeds and that what was needed was a real good "bottoming."

Mr Conway said new

litter bins would soon be installed in the town and that SLDC employers were now responsible for getting

rid of the weeds. "In the past we have used contractors

to do it but that was quite difficult to manage and that is why we are going to be using in-house people to deal with it."

Coun Alf Jarvis said to reduce the problem people needed to be educated'. "There is no point putting more bins in the town if we can't persuade people to use them," he said.

April 17, 2003 11:30