Leicester - St Peters
Neighbourhood Monitoring

Environmental Action Day - 12th November 2007

Members of the Environmental Action Day team take a break and discuss with PC Carl Hefford and WPC Gemma Bird the work clearing an area in Apollo Close.	Another vanload of bark chips arrive to cover the ground cleared of weeds and litter by PC Hefford and WPC Gemma Bird.	Pushpa Patel of St Peters Area Housing office clearing a green space of litter.	A TV set thrown by a resident of Stoughton Street South in the shrubbery was cleared by PC Tom Walkingshaw.	PS Toby Day and PC Steve Wilson muck in to put the bark chips down in the area of Apollo Close cleared earlier by the moat College green team.

We held an Environmental Action Day on Monday 12th November 2007.

Basically means... going around our neighbourhood in St Peters collecting as much litter as we can.

Meeting at Moat Community College at 9.30am and then proceeding around the neighbourhood in small groups.

Everyone was invited and many attended.

• Local Children and Young People
• Resident Board Members
• Leicester City Council Housing Staff
• Estate Wardens
• Police
• and members of the media.

Refreshments were be provided.

Where were all the residents? Where were all the other agencies and organisations?

The police practically turned out their entire team from spinney hill park local policing unit on paid police time to attend. The green team from moat community college also were well represented.

Head of housing Paresh Chandarana and Pushpa Patel from Leicester city council were also there as were the neighbourhood wardens.

What I would like to ask is... where were all the residents? Only two turned up. Did you need more notice or would a saturday have enabled you to participate? Please let us know so we can consider it for our next Action Day.

There are many other organisations other than the police who have a stake in St Peters who we missed on our action day. What can we do to enable you and your agency to attend our next environmental action day?

Why is there so much litter in St Peters?

For many years now the approach of leicester city council to littering "is to educate rather than prosecute" . At least that is what we were told in a meeting with Phil Palmer Head of Highways cleansing earlier in 2007.

Some of us feel that this "educate not prosecute" policy is more about Leicester City Council giving itself a license to do absolutely nothing rather than anything whatsoever to do with holding back the tide of litter in St Peters.

The question we put to Phil Palmer was "with so much litter around in St Peters for so many years, can you tell us how many people have been prosecuted or fined for littering in recent years?"

That is when we learned of this "educate not prosecute" nonsense.

Well some of us resident board members are keen to see Leicester City Council begin to educate those who drop litter or who are inclined to do so.

In fact we are using this website to teach people we film dropping litter a lesson by putting their photo up here for the world to see.

It is our hope that this will not only teach those observed and filmed but those who hear of this education work from this website or through the neighbourhood grapevine THAT IT IS NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR LITTERING.