Love our beach? – follow our signs

Beachgoers are being told to ‘Love our beach’ - or face a £150 fine.

We’re erecting 40 large signs along the seafront calling on people to bin their rubbish properly or take it home – or face an on the spot penalty.

Our beach cleaning teams are having to remove a massive five tonnes of rubbish from the beach every day as more and more people flock to the seafront during lockdown.

Bin it or take it home

A total of 20 hoardings will be placed directly on the beach, with another 20 fastened to lamp posts with the message of ‘Bin it or take it home’.

The signs warn ‘We now issue £150 on the spot fines for dropping or leaving litter’.

There will be officers patrolling the beach from 9am to 7pm every day and will issue fines directly to anyone they see littering.

Anything left on the beach counts as littering

This includes cigarette butts, food, food packaging, cans, bottles, bags and anything else that’s left or dropped on the beach.

If the nearest bin is full, people should find one that isn’t, or be responsible and take their rubbish home.

"We must all take responsibility"

Councillor Anne Pissaridou, chair of the council's Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee, said: “Everyone loves our beach, so we must all take responsibility for keeping it clean and litter free.

“We hope these signs will be a reminder and a deterrent to people not to drop or leave litter on the seafront.

“Our beach teams work incredibly hard from early morning to late evening removing litter from the beach, but they cannot be on every part of the 7 miles of seafront every minute clearing up after people.”

Councillor Pissaridou added: “The sad fact is waste that’s left on the beach can easily end up in the sea, which then pollutes our environment and destroys our marine life.

“The only way to change that is for people to be responsible and dispose of their rubbish sensibly.”