Day 075 - 17 Jan 95 - Page 05

     
     1        intents and purposes, a full-time job?  I realise you are a
     2        research professor as well.
     3        A.  Yes, it is.
     4
     5   MR. RAMPTON:  Can I take it you recognise that leaflet,
     6        Professor Ashworth?
     7        A.  Yes.
     8
     9   Q.   If we look at the back page we see it says:  "The
    10        production of this leaflet has been funded by the
    11        Department of the Environment"; is that true?
    12        A.  Yes.
    13
    14   Q.   It deals in some detail with the law relating to environment/index.html">litter,
    15        does it not?  If I may summarise it, we see that under the
    16        Act there are certain bodies which are described as "duty
    17        bodies" and that there are offences, individual offences,
    18        of littering which were visited or can be visited with
    19        quite heavy penalties.  Then we see, if we look at the last
    20        page but one -- it is an inside folded page -- that a duty
         body, in particular, a Local Authority, can serve on a
    22        business, if it thinks it right to do so, something called
    23        a Street Litter Control Notice?
    24        A.  Yes.
    25
    26   Q.   To save us doing a paper chase, can you tell us where that
    27        power to serve a Street Litter Control Notice comes from?
    28        A.  The power is in the Environmental Protection Act of
    29        1990.
    30
    31   Q.   Can you describe for us briefly the circumstances in which
    32        or the way in which a Street Litter Control Notice works in
    33        practice, when it is given and how it is complied with, and
    34        so on and so forth?
    35        A.  Under the Environmental Protection Act, the Local
    36        Authority was given new duties which they have not had
    37        before, or a principal environment/index.html">litter authority which was given a
    38        new duty which had not existed before, to keep the streets
    39        clear and clear of environment/index.html">litter.  It was also given new powers
    40        because it was recognised that if private companies or
         people who owned land to which the public had access
    42        themselves were guilty of littering, then it was necessary
    43        for the Local Authority to have an additional power to do
    44        something about that.  For instance, the forecourt of a
    45        shop if it is littered and allowed to remain littered by
    46        the owner of or the operator, depending on the
    47        circumstances, of that shop, then the Local Authority can
    48        serve a Street Litter Control Notice upon the owner or
    49        operator to keep the area clean to the standards which the
    50        Local Authorities required to keep it. 
    51 
    52   Q.   Does the business owner, the shop owner, get any kind of 
    53        latitude in point of time for compliance with the Notice?
    54        A.  That will also almost certainly be consistent with
    55        whatever the Local Authority has adopted as its time for
    56        clearance within the framework of the Act.
    57
    58   Q.   Does the time granted by the Local Authority vary according
    59        to the nature and quantity of the environment/index.html">litter which it sees on
    60        the street outside the premises?