Tidy Our Town: WNC responds as Northants Litter Wombles chair calls for tougher crackdown on roadside litter
West Northamptonshire Council has issued a response as the chair of the Northants Litter Wombles has called for greater enforcement and a tougher crackdown on roadside litter.
Mark Watson sent FOI requests to both WNC and Buckinghamshire Council in October last year, requesting data on how many people had been fined for throwing litter out of cars, vans and lorries between January 1 to October 25, 2025.
Buckinghamshire Council’s waste enforcement team confirmed that 86 penalties had been issued regarding Littering from Vehicle (LFV) cases and 74 vehicles had been involved. This breaks down to 51 cars, 16 vans and 7 HGVs.
The issuing system counts the total number of penalties sent and there can be multiple for a single offending vehicle, for example if there is a transfer of liability or the registered keeper has changed.
When Mark heard back from WNC, he was informed that the requested information was not held by the local authority and they were unable to break their littering data down to the requested format.
Talking to the Chronicle & Echo, Mark said: “A successful anti litter and fly tip policy consists of four parts – education on the harms, providing bins, cleaning up quickly through a decent collection system, and enforcement.
“We think the Northants Litter Wombles and other groups across the county work well with West and North Northamptonshire Councils. We’ve got good coordination and evidence suggests fly tipping collection seems to have improved over the past couple of months.
“There are lots of good things in the way we’re working with WNC in particular but the last part, enforcement, they need to consider doing things differently. When you look at the Facebook pages for Wombles, it’s full of questions about why things aren’t being enforced. It’s a free waste collection service at the moment.”
Mark has admired the social media pages of other local authorities, namely Buckinghamshire Council, which he says is full of posts about people having been fined for throwing litter out of vehicles. This is what prompted his FOI request five months ago.
Talking about the fact WNC could not provide the requested information, Mark said: “It wasn’t a surprise really. Bucks clearly take enforcement really seriously and see it as important enough to keep the specific data on it.
“We cooperate well with WNC and couldn’t do what we do without them, but there’s more that can be done on enforcement. We want to say we appreciate their help but ask that we get a bit better in this area.”
Mark described roadside litter as a hot topic among the Northants Litter Wombles and said: “It’s apparent that the A45 from Northampton to Wellingborough is really bad in places. That’s not the fault of the Council or the Wombles, it’s the fault of the people who do it.”
The volunteer believes improvements were made to roadside littering following the Northants Litter Wombles’ visit to Parliament in 2023, but says it has gone downhill again.
Mark would love to see the reintroduction of anti-littering messages on electronic road signs across the county, due to the positive impact they had in 2024.
“I haven’t seen any for a year,” said Mark. “They were meant to be displayed regularly and the education side is not being done. When it comes to education and enforcement, the tap is open and it needs closing.
“We know people pay attention to road signs. We need that education and the fines to stop people throwing rubbish out of their vehicles, and then they wouldn’t need to close the roads, cause inconvenience to drivers and put workers at risk to clear it.”
‘We don’t currently record our littering data in a way that lets us separate it into categories’
West Northamptonshire Council was approached for comment by the Chronicle & Echo and asked why they were unable to provide the information that Mark requested.
A spokesperson said: “We don’t currently record our littering data in a way that lets us separate it into categories like ‘from cars’. We’re moving to a new case management system this summer and are looking at changing our data codes so we can collect more detailed information in future.”
As well as the data gained from the FOI request to Buckinghamshire Council, Mark praised their use of social media to share the level of enforcement for roadside littering cases. He believes this shows they feel passionately about the issue, as they shout about it and keep the data to hand.
When asked why WNC does not do the same, the spokesperson said: “We do share enforcement updates when needed. We’ve recently reviewed our approach and will start sharing more varied messages soon, including encouraging people to send us dashcam footage when they witness littering.”
The local authority was then asked if tackling roadside littering and upping enforcement are both priorities for WNC moving forward, and how this will be put into practice across West Northamptonshire.
“Yes,” said the spokesperson. “Enforcing against littering, fly tipping and other environmental crimes is a priority, but we have to balance this with staff and resources. We focus on the areas that need the most attention and use intelligence to decide where our officers should go.”
Finally, when asked if there are plans to display anti-littering messages on electronic road signs in 2026, the spokesperson concluded: “The signs are mainly used for highway updates, but we can use them when they’re available. We’ll continue to use them for anti-litter messages whenever we can.”
If you would like to get involved in the Tidy Our Town campaign, established in collaboration with the Northants Litter Wombles, email [email protected].