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Cleaning up your local area with the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill New powers for Parish and Town Councils In October 2004, Tony Blair made an announcement that it was the intention of the government to provide parish and town councils with new powers to deal with antisocial behaviour, allowing them to levy fixed penalty notices in relation to offences of litter dropping and graffiti or for noise nuisance. In conjunction with this statement, DEFRA over the last two years, has conducted extensive consultations that have given rise to the introduction of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill which is currently making its way through parliament. The Bill The Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 7 December 2004. Margaret Beckett MP, the Secretary of State for DEFRA, informed the House of Commons that: ‘The central purpose of the Bill is to improve the local environment, which directly affects people’s quality of life’. Mrs Beckett, continued by saying that the Bill, ‘gives new powers to parish councils so that the most local level of our democratic structures can play a part in making things better.’ Problem Areas The problem areas that the government are seeking to legislate in are as follows;
What difference does it make on the ground? The initial question to the measures proposed in the Bill was, how will this Act, if it comes into force, empower our councils to achieve clean neighbourhoods and environments? The Act will define parish and community councils as litter authorities. The Act will amend section 88 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, by extending the definition of litter authority to include a parish or community council. An authorised officer employed by a litter authority may give a person who throws down litter in a prohibited place, a fixed penalty notice requiring them to pay an amount specified by the principal litter authority, or if not amount is specified, a £75 penalty. The Act will also empower an authorised officer to require the person to give their name and address, failure to do so will constitute and offence. The Dogs (Fouling of Land) Act 1996 will be repealed if the Act comes into force. Under the Act, both primary or secondary authorities, will be able to make Dog Control Orders, relating to the following matters;
Parish and community councils will fall within the definition of ‘secondary authority’. An authorised employee of a secondary authority may give a person who commits an offence specified in a dog control order’
The Act will also empower an authorised officer to require the person to give their name and address, failure to do so will constitute and offence. Graffiti and Fly-Posting Graffiti and fly-posting is considered by most to be anti-social because it not only spoils the local landscape but also creates and overall impression of neglect and high crime rates to the immediate vicinity, which in turn destroys quality of life for all concerned. The Act will allow parish and town councils to be more proactive in combating these problems and proposes to amend the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, accordingly. This new poser will enable parish and town councils to issue fixed penalty notices and obtain names and addresses of those persons who commit graffiti and fly-posting offences. The Act The Bill is comprehensive, and covers a wide-range of other issues, which are more applicable to principal authorities. It is proposed that the Act will be cited as the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005. Summary Some parish and town councils may be disappointed and consider that the Bill does not go far enough in allowing them to tackle the anti-social behaviour problems so many of them face on a daily basis. However on a more positive note, the Act is drafted in terms that can only assist to create cleaner neighbourhoods and environments. Further details of the Bill can be accessed via the following website: www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/pabills.htm
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