A council plans on battling “the plague” of shopping trolleys dumped in its rivers and streets by hitting supermarkets harder in the pocket.
Canterbury City Council (CCC) members say the unsightly metal carts are “everywhere and ruining the view”, forcing the authority to clear hundreds in recent years.
In a bid to tackle the problem, it plans to issue supermarkets with heftier fines for the collection, storage and, in some cases, destruction of the trolleys.
Cllr Alister Brady (Lab) proposed a motion to CCC last week describing the carts as “the scourge of our city.”
He told a meeting of the full council that the issue “leads to flytipping, leads to more rubbish being placed, leads to the area being run down”.
He continued: “We’ve got supermarkets running along the Stour, the trolleys from the supermarkets are abandoned and get thrown in there, and there’s an over-reliance on volunteers to put on waders, go into the Stour and collect them themselves.
“Trolleys abandoned in the Stour are incredibly damaging to wildlife – we’ve got a beaver lodge there and the supermarkets seem to absolve themselves of responsibility.
“They seem to look at this and think it’s somebody else’s problem.”
In Canterbury and the rest of the district, discarded trolleys are collected by Canenco – the council’s waste management firm – and supermarkets are charged £82.50 if they collect them within six weeks.
If they do not reclaim the shopping cart within six weeks, CCC destroys it and charges £146.67 to the food store instead.
However, Cllr Brady cited Cheltenham Borough Council’s practice as something to learn from, telling how the authority charges shops £50 upon finding an abandoned trolley, plus another £5 for every day it is stored, and a £310 disposal fee after 42 days in storage.
He proposed a motion calling for CCC to “explore the possibility for higher fines in the future”.
Seconding it, Cllr Elizabeth Carr-Ellis (Lab) said: “This summer I came up with a game called the three Bs – you go along the Stour and you look for the beavers, the birds, and the bloody shopping trolleys.
“The bloody shopping trolleys are everywhere, they ruin the view they ruin the countryside. I hate seeing the people in Kingsmead Field going out to clean up the Stour only to know that there will be another shopping trolley in it next week
“To me it’s a no-brainer – we have to send out a message that we don’t support flytipping of any sort.”
Cllr Paul Prentice (Lab), also backing the proposals, said: “Anyone who’s visited the Canenco depot will have seen the fleets of trolleys stacked up that have been collected by Canenco – it really shouldn’t be their problem.”
The Cathedral city has numerous supermarkets – Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Aldi and Asda – all of which allow customers to use carts normally stationed out the front of the stores.
Cabinet member for services Cllr Charlotte Cornell (Lab) explained the cabinet “welcomes the motion” and has “already discussed” upping the charges as part of its budget-setting process for the next financial year.
“In the last financial year we had an income of around £14,000 from supermarket trolleys and we chased every single one of those debts, and they were all paid,” she said.
“Members of the public – should you see a trolley on our land please let us know as soon as possible because they prove very lucrative,” she quipped, eliciting a chuckle from the chamber.
The full council voted unanimously to ensure the cabinet looks at increasing the fees in the next budget.
Stour river warden Sian Pettman said: “You find them just about anywhere within a one-mile radius of a supermarket.”
Mrs Pettman, who takes part in river cleans organised by the Kentish Dour Countryside Partnership, said the discarded trolleys “create a very grotty impression”.
Praising the council’s move, she continued: “I think it’s long overdue that this plague of trolleys in the city is tackled seriously.
“It needs to be part of a suite of measures – it’s not going to solve the problem in itself but it’s an important aspect of a strategy for tackling the problem.
“Higher fines are important but it’s only going to achieve so much.”
Alongside other volunteers, she routinely fishes the discarded shopping vessels from the Stour, which runs through Canterbury.
The work is “extremely hazardous” for volunteers in some places she says – citing the area of river behind the Parham student village in particular as being steep and filled with hazardous litter.
She and fellow volunteers have removed “dozens” from that area alone, she says.
A spokesperson for Morrisons told KentOnline: “We take this matter really seriously.
“As soon as we are made aware of any abandoned trolleys, we work alongside Trolleywise (a company which collects lost trollies) to ensure they are returned back to our stores.”
Sainsbury’s expressed similar sentiments, with a spokesperson adding: “We have measures in place to prevent trolleys leaving our estate, including a coin/token operated locking system at our Canterbury store.
“We also work with a specialist contractor to collect trolleys and ask anyone who sees an abandoned one to report it on the TrolleyWise website, or to the store so we can retrieve it as soon as possible.”
Asda and Aldi did not respond to requests for comment.