What a rubbish

way to behave

ENFORCEMENT officers may not win many friends in the course of their duties.

Their role, after all, is to stop people doing all sorts of anti-social things that, like wilful toddlers, they really, really, want to do.

But they can at least influence behaviour.

When nothing else will persuade our slobbier residents to deposit their takeaway cartons, chewing gum and fag ends where they ought to, the threat of a fine is all that’s left.

So the city council’s decision to deploy litter wardens is one we should welcome.

Isn’t it sad that it’s necessary to protect them from Salisbury’s sizeable yob contingent, so they’ll need to work in pairs?

Targeting ‘grot hot spots’ such as New Canal, Milford Street and Catherine Street is a great start, but I hope it will prove possible eventually to move on to the ring road, where a red light is seen by some motorists as a signal not just to stop, but to start chucking out sweet wrappers and cans.

As for our parks, the moment the sun comes out, however briefly, so do hordes of people with picnics, disposable barbecues and apparently disposable clothing, leaving piles of detritus alongside overflowing bins.

That’s if we’re lucky.

Otherwise they just drop this stuff wherever they feel like it or lob it into the rivers.

The number of plastic bottles that float downstream from Harnham cricket field, to end up swirling around our oceans, is worrying.

I cleared up half a dozen on Saturday alone, all dumped around waterside benches sited within a few feet of a bin.

Even more alarming are the revellers who leave their underpants, or one shoe, on the same field. Can they really be unaware that they’re hopping home half-dressed?

I’ve been known to fish such unsavoury items off the riverbank and put them on top of the nearest bin, rather than in it, in case they come back to search for them once they’ve sobered up, but they never do.

On Saturday an entire school uniform, complete with name tags - I won’t embarrass him – lay abandoned under a tree. A bit early for a fit of post-exam euphoria, I'd have thought?

(There was also, apparently, a naked man running about the park on Friday afternoon after being interrupted in an amorous interlude, pursued by half a dozen police officers in a scene reminiscent of the Benny Hill Show. But that’s another story!)

All in all, it seems to me, a significant proportion of the population has lost any sense of how to behave in public and hasn’t the slightest interest in showing consideration towards others.

So good luck to the city council in trying to reimpose a few standards. They’ll need it.

anneriddle36@gmail.com