LITTER louts will be punished with on-the-spot fines under the latest plans to clean up the city.

The new Conservative leadership of Salisbury City Council has made ridding the streets of rubbish a priority over the next four years.

The main problems the council has identified are general littering, cleaning up after events, commercial waste, and domestic waste not being collected.

Cllr Sven Hocking said: “It’s been slowly getting worse.

“There’s a general social issue of people just not caring.”

The city council took on responsibility for street cleaning from Wiltshire Council under the asset transfer in May.

Since then it has bought two street sweeping machines and is drawing up a plan to cover the city.

It recently hired a large gutter sweeping machine and collected 66 tonnes of rubbish in a week from within the city boundary, Cllr Hocking said.

And he said commercial waste is a significant factor, with businesses putting out their rubbish sometimes days before it is collected.

The fact that many traders in the city centre have nowhere to put their waste except on the street makes the situation worse.

Another concern is that a number of different firms are coming into the city to collect commercial rubbish, at different times and on different days.

The council is looking at the option of using a single company to collect the waste, possibly daily.

Before it can issue fines for littering, the council will have to train staff and give them enforcement powers, which Cllr Hocking said could be a “long and rigorous process.”

The plans are at an early stage, but Cllr Hocking warned: “There will be fixed penalties.”