Swat the Fly Tippers

I have taken to tweeting, yes tweeting, for those who are surprised, images of “beautiful Inverclyde”, passing on to a wider audience the fantastic beauty of our area and dispelling the myth of the dirty old town.

But in my day job I am unfortunately confronted by the anti-social behaviour of the fly tippers who, as a minority have no respect for the local environment or their neighbours.

Despite the efforts of Inverclyde Council who provide recycling facilities and other schemes throughout the town, fly tippers are prepared to vandalise our leisure areas and neighbourhoods.

Figures released under a Freedom of Information request which I submitted to Inverclyde Council showed that last year there were over 4,000 recorded incidences of fly tipping. Apart from the disrespect of our area, this comes at a price, costing millions of pounds to clean up after these vandals throughout Scotland.

I welcome the consultation recently launched by the Scottish Government on the strategy to prevent littering and fly tipping, and I support their view that fixed penalty fines for fly-tipping should be increased to £200.

If you want to express your views on how best we can tackle the problem you can access the Scottish Governments consultation via their website at http://home.scotland.gov.uk/home

In the meantime, if you agree with me that you want to keep Inverclyde beautiful, I would encourage you to swat the fly tippers by calling the confidential hotline 0845 230 4090.