I’ve just read a City Council Press release entitled “Successful Prosecutions for Littering in the City Centre”.  I’m afraid to say that I don’t really see prosecution and issuing of fines as a success, more as a failure.  Surely the objective here is to make the City Centre tidier – not turn people into criminals?  Now I’m not for a minute condoning littering and I entirely support holding people to account for their actions but wouldn’t it have been much better to make the offenders take part in a City Centre clean-up / litter pick rather than just fining them?  I think that would have a much more positive effect on their future behaviour and would be a success in terms of tidying up the City.

Maybe I’m just too Liberal?  But it would have been nice to see a more positive headline than this.