Cleaning up our countryside and streets currently costs the taxpayer almost £800 million a year. In order to deter and punish the anti-social minority who continue to drop rubbish, the maximum on-the-spot fines for dropping litter will almost double from April next year - from the current limit of £80 to £150.
Councils will be able to impose these fines on the owners of vehicles from which litter is thrown, even if it was discarded by someone else.
NFU environment policy adviser, Theo Plowman, said: “We welcome the government’s action on increasing litter fines and hope that councils continue to enforce effective measures. Too often our beautiful countryside is blighted by casual littering; however the scourge of industrial scale fly-tipping is also increasingly problematic and we call on the magistrates and local authorities to make use of harsher penalties.”
Ms Coffey said: “Littering blights our communities, spoils our countryside and taxpayers’ money is wasted cleaning it up. These new fines will make sure the perpetrators, not the local community, bear the cost of keeping our streets and roads clean.”