County accused of “not fulfilling duty” over Brexit impact

The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.

The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.

Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.

The RPU, a dedicated team of officers who will proactively patrol the roads of Lincolnshire, was officially launched on Wednesday, July 6.

PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.

PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.

Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.

“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.

When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.

“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.

“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”

Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.

“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”

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South Kesteven District Council has set the record straight on comments made by a leader which indicated those who didn’t recycle properly would face enforcement action or fines.

During a meeting on Tuesday, Councillor Mark Whittington referenced fixed penalty notices and enforcement action when talking about recycling and contamination, particularly mentioning a tour with the authority’s refuse team through Grantham.

“Speaking with the guys on the front line… people are just putting out rubbish every week there’s no efforts being made in a lot of cases to recycle,” he told the meeting

“We have been educating people, we’ve been trying to get them to sort of put certain things out on certain days and its reached the stage now because we’re going to have to take enforcement action against them because… some residents unfortunately don’t seem, despite numerous attempts to educate them, to exercise any responsibility in terms of recycling.

“We’re left in a situation where the refuse guys unfortunately, because of public health concerns they have to take what’s there and unfortunately there’s an awful lot of contamination.”

During further comments around contamination and education around recycling he said “There comes a point when ultimately you have to start taking some sanctions against them and we are moving towards a situation where for persistent offenders … we will now be issuing fixed penalty notices against them because they are having an impact upon our recycling rates because of the fact they’re not recycling.”

But the next day, the council has backtracked on this idea.

Following reports on his comments, Councillor Whittington has now sought to clarify that he was talking about two separate issues which became conflated.

He said this was recycling contamination, and residents leaving out SKDC rubbish bags to build up in areas of the street.

In statement a later statement he said: “Rather than issue fixed penalties over household recycling, at SKDC we prefer to concentrate on advice and education. Our contamination rate is around 30%.

“If householders mistakenly place items in their recycling or garden waste bins that cannot be accepted, the bin collection crews may leave a tag on the bin to let them know and give advice on which items should go where.

The statement said his comments in the meeting were referring to a series of incidents in an area of Grantham where householders who were issued SKDC bags rather than wheelie bins were persistently leaving them out all week, despite advice from officers.

He said: “Residents are regularly reminded when their collection day is and how and when to present their refuse – and South Kesteven District Council does not routinely fine people who leave their waste out for collection on the wrong day.

“Incorrectly presented waste, which can result in a lower quality in the local environment or animal scavenging and litter from split sacks, could result in a fixed penalty of £80; however enforcement is a last resort and we have not issued any fines to date as we prefer an informal approach in the first instance.

“We would advise that householders keep bags or bins within their property boundary until just prior to their collection day.”

Further information about each topic can be found online at www.southkesteven.gov.uk/whichbin and www.southkesteven.gov.uk/missedbins