Author BILL BRYSON, president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, has backed the Times & Star’s campaign to Keep It Clean. Here, he writes about our right to live in a clean country....

Last updated 11:51, Friday, 18 April 2008

LITTER was conspicuous throughout almost all my recent journey to Cumbria from Dorset; virtually the whole of way litter was fluttering in every hedgerow, piled in every lay-by.

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Litter is becoming the default condition of the British countryside.

People should campaign to make the countryside what it was almost everywhere until recently and what most of us still want it to be - a place of cherished beauty and sometimes utter perfection.

A tidy countryside should be a right, not a surprise.

The bodies responsible for cleaning up litter and fly tipping admit it is getting worse and many local authorities remain magnificently relaxed when it comes to doing anything about it.

The total of fines for littering nationally last year was just slightly over £1.5 million, or about one-fifteenth of what the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea collects annually in parking fines.

Of the 42,624 fines levied, only 26,818 were actually paid, resulting in considerable loss of revenue.

And 72 out of 354 local authorities issued no penalties at all.

Littering is not a crime that has anyone quaking for fear of the consequences, because by and large there are no consequences.

None of us need stand idly by as our towns and our countryside are trashed.

Of course it is vital that people do not drop litter in the first place, but local authorities, central Government and other public bodies have a duty to clear it up and should all give a much stronger lead on the problem.

We can all put pressure on them to do so.

ANDY Yuille, Campaign to Protect Rural England’s regional policy officer for the North West, has also backed our campaign.

He told us: “In rural areas, such as West Cumbria, litter has a disproportionate effect. It’s not nice to be in a lovely area like that and to see crisp packets and drink cans all over the place

“We must try to change attitudes and behaviour and influence local authorities to enforce their clean-up powers.

“We must lobby the Government to change our throwaway culture, and to act on excess packaging.

“We must encourage people to dispose of rubbish in the most responsible way, to recycle and to get manufacturers to use re-usable and recycling packaging.”

An estimated 25 million tonnes of litter is dropped each year in the UK.

The problem is five times worse than it was in the 1960s. Local authorities dealt with 2.6 million incidents of fly tipping in England in 2006-2007 - five per cent more than in the previous year. During that period, only 1,700 people were successfully prosecuted for fly tipping, while taxpayers footed a £73 million clean-up bill.

At the same time, a survey by the Government’s own litter watchdog, Encams, showed that local authority performance on litter cleaning has dropped from satisfactory to unsatisfactory, with not one council being rated as good.