BASILDON Council has successfully prosecuted a number of residents for littering in August.

Twenty-one prosecutions have been successfully gained so far this month, after fixed penalty notices for the initial offences had been ignored or disputed. The offences came under section 87 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, where a person is guilty of an offence if they throw down, drop or otherwise deposit litter in any place to which this section applies and leaves it.

Separately to these littering fines, council teams have fined almost 300 individuals for fly-tipping since February 2020.

Council leader and chairman of its enforcement and public order committee Cllr Andrew Baggott said: "We have a zero-tolerance approach to littering of any kind in the borough and we will continue to take this approach moving forwards. There's never an excuse for littering.

"Hopefully the success in these recent prosecutions will act as a deterrent to those individuals and the wider borough to know that littering isn't worth the potential consequences. This helps to keep our borough cleaner in the long term.

"Be like the vast majority of our residents and do the right thing with your waste. Don't be like the 21 residents so far in August who have faced legal and financial consequences because they haven't done the right thing with theirs."