TEIGNBRIDGE Council had become the biggest litter lout in the district, it was alleged at the authority’s budget meeting on Tuesday.

The statement came from Cllr Alan Connett as Liberal Democrat councillors put forward unsuccessful amendments to the proposed budget of a £5 council tax increase for Band D properties for 2016-2017.

‘The things people do not like is putting out their rubbish and seeing it going off down the streets. People are saying a commonsense solution is to put a net across the top of the recycling box rather than chasing litter up and down the road,’ he said.

Cllr Connett appealed to all councillors: ‘Put the politics to one side. Do we want to keep Teignbridge a clean and pleasant district by keeping it clean, or do we just want to say here are the boxes, this is your problem.’

Cllr Alistair Dewhirst said residents across the district had contacted Lib-Dem councillors about the litter created from the recycling collection. ‘A net across the top of the boxes is a simple, practical solution,’ he maintained.

In the Lib-Dems amendment, group leader Cllr Gordon Hook had suggested an environmental investment of £69,000 for litter prevention methods, which would include the purchase of ‘hair nets’ for recycling boxes.

‘The boxes are currently spewing vast quantities of paper and plastics on to both the rural and urban street scene to the huge frustration of many,’ he said.

Cllr Hook said he had seen large quantities of paper and plastic bags blowing out of the bulking station site in Newton Abbot and heading straight to Buckland on the prevailing wind. ‘The council is generating litter by a poorly thought through waste collection,’ he said.

After the meeting Cllr Kevin Lake, portfolio holder for environment services, said he found the attack on the recycling scheme ‘distasteful and an insult to Teignbridge staff’.

He said the council, which introduced the collection service along with the garden waste scheme last year, was undertaking a review.

‘The nets are being introduced at the bulking station and it is an evolving system which is constantly under review. Regarding the recycling boxes, we are in the process of educating the public to stack the boxes,’ he said, pointing out that initial figures showed that recycling was going up and landfill waste decreasing.