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THOSE disgusted at the state of Warminster’s litter strewn streets must wonder whether there is an answer to the problem or if it can ever be tackled effectively.

It can and in some places has been - but it takes imagination and will and a sense of outrage clearly not felt by those currently in charge of our town.

Clearly they don’t care or otherwise something would have been done by now as they have been in charge for a long time now.

Success elsewhere has involved a programme of information, education and enforcement and also providing proper bins that people want to use. Signs that shame those spitting out gum.

We’ll start with education.

The new council will need to ram home the message on every lamppost that littering is unacceptable and will be punished with a fine issued by litter wardens who vigorously pursue this matter.

It happens elsewhere and it works.

We need to install new bins, which take account of the fact that smoking has been forced out on to the streets by the smoking ban, and have integral ashtrays.

In Warminster we need to develop a ‘Warminster Rubbish Awareness Project’ which works through the schools to involve the whole community in reducing the rubbish, sets up community litter picking teams and organises mass clear ups of badly hit areas, perhaps by involving the garrison.

We need to engage with the whole community in this through newspapers, community groups, the community partnership, civic trust, the police and in fact everyone who has a vested interest in keeping this community tidy.

We have the will and imagination to force this programme forward but we are likely to get little help from the town council as they seem about as interested in this subject as they are in the town hall.