Piles of rubbish on beaches and proms at Margate sands, Botany Bay, Viking Bay, Palm Bay and Westgate over the last few days have provoked a public outcry.
Councillors including Westgate’s Bertie Braidwood and Broadstairs mayor Mike Garner voiced dismay over the litter strewn on streets and bays.
Cllr Braidwood said: “Every single promenade bin (was) overflowing ahead of another busy day for both beaches.
“I’ve written to the portfolio holder responsible (cabinet member Cllr Steve Albon) asking him to explain TDC’s current refuse strategy and whether he thinks this is acceptable. What a disgrace.”
Cllr Garner says he has received several complaints.
He said: “Several people have contacted me over the past few days to complain about the amount of litter that’s been left strewn about the town at the end of each day and about the overflowing litter bins. I have to say, I share their dismay as it’s recently been the worst I can remember for quite a while.”
Yesterday (August 13) Cllr Garner filled seven bags with litter picked from the High Street and the prom.
He said: “While responsibility for a lot of the litter strewn around the streets sits mainly with the people who do it, we need to do all we can to make it easier for those people to dispose of their litter responsibly.
“In essence we need more bins, especially during the holiday season, in places where people can easily find them. We need them emptied more often and we need more street cleaners.”
Cllr Garner said the Town Council would look to see how more could be done through organising extra litter picks and working closely with the district council to make sure Broadstairs is considered a high priority.
A town mayor litter pick has already been organised for this Saturday (August 17) from 10am to 11.30am, meeting at the bandstand. There will be some litter pickers, bag holders and gloves but if people have their own equipment they are asked to bring it. Bags will be provided.
However, Cllr Garner says this morning Thanet council has installed 12 new wheelie bins along the parade.
He said: “I’m pleased to see that TDC have listened to some of our suggestions and placed several extra bins along the parade this morning. I’ve seen one being used.
“They’ll need to make sure they’re put in place at the start of the season next year as part of a plan to prevent the same thing happening again.”
The Friends of Botany Bay CIC say a huge mountain of bagged rubbish left at the bay on Monday was due to the council’s ineptitude in tackling parking problems which arise every year, meaning bin lorries were unable to get through and take the rubbish away.
Ward councillor Alan Munns said cars blocking the routes caused the issue, but added: “We are trying to find a solution to the parking issues. Credit to the bin team who were there at 8am the next morning. It took them two trips to clear the bins. They are really working hard and it was an awful job.”
Resident Becca Jenkins says she was shocked by the huge litter pile at Botany when she went to watch the meteor shower on Sunday night.
She said: “ I couldn’t believe how much rubbish was on the beach. It” was pitch black so difficult to see the extent of it, but it was everywhere.
“The bins at the top of the stairs were overflowing but it seems many people just left theirs on the beach.
“We are blessed to have so many beautiful beaches in Thanet ,it’s just a shame that others completely disrespect them.”
Thanet council says extra resources are put in place during the summer season with, this year, 100 extra bins installed around the coast, plus 30 large mixed recycling bins at key locations.
The council’s Waste and Recycling teams work extended hours during the summer months. Cleaning crews are on duty every day from 6am to 6pm, extended to 8pm when required, emptying the bins on the most popular beaches twice every day and collecting litter. This summer, there are three additional crews in place.
The council has also employed four litter pickers who cover Margate Main Sands, Joss Bay and Viking Bay in Broadstairs, and Ramsgate Main Sands.
A spokesperson said: “Thanet has 19 miles of beautiful coastline and the council, along with local partners and community groups, works hard all year round to ensure it’s in the best condition possible.
“During the peak summer season, the council puts extra resources into beach management, to plan for the increased demand on services. Measures include placing more rubbish and recycling bins along the coastline and deploying additional cleansing teams who work extended hours to tackle the demand.
“Education plays a key part in reminding people to take responsibility for their own waste and to respect the environment around them. Messages are shared, including on social media, throughout the summer, encouraging people to put rubbish into the bins provided, recycle it, or take it home with them if bins are full.
“Thanet also has a Beach and Coast Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) in place. It helps keep the district’s beaches clean and safe for everyone to enjoy, and prohibits a range of activities. Dedicated Enforcement Officers patrol the coast and speak to anyone spotted breaching the PSPO, to educate them about the rules. If this approach fails, Enforcement Officers can issue Fixed Penalty Notices.
“Botany Bay is situated in a residential area with very limited parking. Everyone who visits the beach is reminded to park considerately to maintain access for residents, emergency vehicles and waste trucks. This is a year-round message and is reinforced on digital signs on routes into Thanet and near to Botany Bay.”
The constant mounds of litter are a recurring issue for Thanet. In 2018, Thanet council collected over 5 tonnes of litter from isle parks, streets and beaches, some 3.5 tonnes of that was just from beaches.
Workers also cleared 100 tonnes of fly-tipped rubbish, emptied 900 tonnes of rubbish from bins and cleared 840,00 tonnes of detritus during street sweeping.
The cost of that cleaning and litter collections to Thanet District Council was £1.9million and it was an exercise repeated again in 2019.
Just last month there were complaints in Margate and at Viking Bay that rubbish had piled up on promenades, next to large dustbins, and was noticeable on beaches.
One resident said: “The rubbish is an ongoing issue and made worse with them taking all the bins away in (Broadstairs) high street.
“We need better bins that the seagulls can’t get in and in the summer, more collections.”
Summer holidays signal return of rubbish left on isle promenades and beaches
I’m guessing the visitor tax for coaches
Which was mentioned a few years back after the beech was left in a right state
Never happened 🤷
The build up of rubbish is mostly around the bins that are full and overflowing hence a mess. It’s not rocket science to assume if there were more bins and they were emptied twice/ three times per day 8am / 12 and 4pm in the summer month’s the bins could even be 3 times day there would not be a mess.
Bill’s a dick usually, but he’s 100% correct on this occasion.
Not true-we have seen pictures in the past of people dumping rubbish nowhere near bins. The people who throw their rubbish out of their vehicles windows as they drive along etc. The little scrotes who dump their laughing gas canisters on the beach. Those who let their dogs defecate everywhere & then walk away without picking it up etc.
Should TDC be doing better with the bins? Yes, but then again like all councils they have limited financial resources. There is no excuse for people just dumping their rubbish-if the bins are full then take your rubbish off the beach & either find a bin elsewhere to put it in, or take it home & dispose of it in your own bin.
With most people it wouldn’t matter if TDC supplied a hundred bins on the beach & had people emptying them every hour-these people would still be dumping their rubbish on the floor. They have no respect for other people, or themselves for that matter. This is how they live-like trash.
If the bin is full take your rubbish home with you it’s that simple
This is standard fayre for Thanet.
Root cause: Thanet District Circus who have ignored the problem for years and continue to do so. TDC do not learn from mistakes they just keep compunding them and they continue year in year out and every year the problem gets worse.
One councillor WRITING to another councillor… W.T.F. It just goes to show the council chamber is filled with bottom-feeders presiding over a council staff of clock-watching jobsworths (those that aren’t working from home [sunbathing].
Cllr Garner filled seven bags with litter picked from the High Street and the prom. Again! W.T.F. I suggest that Cllr. Garner gets back to the council chamber and do his job – making the TDC employees do their job.
Another councillor suggests it is parking that is the problem. TDC car-parking might as well be non-existent for all the good it does (NOT).
Cllr. Garner is not a member of the ruling group. He has no authority over council staff. He’s trying to help as I’m sure you are.
So blame/attack TDC & a councillor for spending his own time filling up bags of litter that vermin have dropped on the floor & say nothing about the lowlifes dumping their rubbish on the floor-for which there is never any excuse. Sums up why the world is in such as mess.
The problem is not caused by TDC, it is caused every year by the zero respect vermin who come here or live here & treat the area like a rubbish tip as soon as it gets hot.
I have seen near empty bins & people dump their rubbish 20 foot away from it-they actually enjoy doing it, making the area they live in or are visiting look like a dump, scrawling on walls, assaulting other people etc. Because that is how they live on their trash estates & they like making other peoples lives a misery.
I live in Viking and the overflowing of bins is a 365 days a year problem.Even in the Winter months the bins are full and the overspill either ends up in the sea or in all the side streets.I picked up 92 pieces of litter in my road on Day 2 of Folk Week and I can tell you this would not be picked up by TDC.My road has not been swept for 12 years.The problem is TDC who are incapable of planning for any event.I have just come back from Norfolk,visiting many resorts with just as many tourists.All spotlessly clean.
Next I will get Councillors and Polly Billington going on about Southern Water and pollution.What hypocrisy.
Quite right- bins disappear as soon as the schools go back in September yet the weekends are still very busy with Airbnb and locals using the promenades and get takeaway coffees etc, but TDC seem to think come Sept 7th no one is out and about. In sunny winters day st the weekend you can see literally hundreds of people along the irons and cliff tops all around Thanet yet in Westbrook and Westgate at least only a couple of bins. TDC open your eyes and take a walk yourself to see the issue here!
True. People dump their household rubbish in litter bins. And if it’s full they dump their detritus beside bins for the seagulls to get creative with. There are also various sites that are, apparently, honorary rubbish tips … no bin and never has been, but still just the job for the old tv & the stinky food packaging.
I sometimes imagine that the culprits’ homes may well be squeaky clean but they care not one jot for the wider environment / other people.
Like many Labour Portfolio holders, Councillor Albon rarely makes any public statements when things have gone badly wrong on his watch. He’ll pop up again next Spring to launch a new, enhanced Beach Management Plan and promise that everything will be better this year.
Spoiler alert. It won’t be.
The 840,000 tonne figure has cropped up before , where do these figures come from? Or is this figure including the household collections? Hard to believe that an extra 5 tonnes of rubbish is collected per thanet resident.
I know people who dont visit Thanet because it looks like a rubbish dump.Im embarrassed to invite friends down for a weekend.There is nothing to be proud of.
The restaurant area in Ramsgate has litter everywhere,seagull crap everywhere and you have to walk around so many weeds to enter the restaurants.Hardly a nice environment to eat in.Total neglect by the zcouncil.
‘’Sorry, I’m going to have to cancel this weekends plans with you. There is just too much litter in the street’’
Some people just moan for the sake of it. Complete nonsense. This comment is another example of ‘it doesn’t affect me, I’ll make something up so that it does’’.
Thought Id take a beautiful walk on Monday.God what an eyesore.I was wading through litter.Not enough bins.
I saw an elderley gentlemen taking in the sunrise on a seafront bench with coffee and cake in hand.All under the benches were litter and either side of the bench were 3foot stacks of litter.
The whole area away from the beach is litter and weed strewn.
The bins are full everyday of the week by midday.This how idiotic our council is.The only corner shop near East Kent College is 500 yards away.So early morning and lunctime some 1000 plus students converge on the corner to buy their vape packets,foods and sweets with only one bin in the area.The bin is full and overflowing by lunchtime and sometimes isnt emptied for 48hrs.So the litter goes everywhere.Never to be litter picked.
Nice clean drive down from London on A2,M2 and A299 and then you reach the Thanet border.Litter increases 20 fold.
I heard Thanet described as the boil on the UKs arse.
You will find two or theee refuse lorries (with crew) parked up by Government Acre or the Viking Ship at any given time of day!
Perhaps TDC should stop removing dog waste bins as they have been for the last couple of years and increase the number of general waste bins. Thanet is getting overrun with graffiti too. It isn’t always about how much money you have to tackle issues, but using it effectively.
Aren’t most of them joint purpose now? For litter & dog waste.
I totally agree thanet is a disgrace for litter and graffiti.
It’s the type of people that visit and the people of thanet that cause this.
If the bin is full take it home.
Why don’t shop provide bins if their products are wrapped ? If people have ‘stuff’ to the beach than take that ‘stuff’ home.
But that’s keep blaming tdc for the scum that visit thanet and the scum that live here.
It’s seems people are happy to blame tdc for visitors and residents poor up bringing.
The council are RUBBISH-Reason Thanet is always seen as a dump.Graffiti liiter in car parks and weeds. BOGNOR REGIS JUST COME BACK – AND WHAT A LOVELY PLACE MORE BETTER THEN THIS SAD DUMP.
Perhaps you should move there. It isn’t the Council making the mess is it? It’s the visitors and residents choosing to behave like animals. There is only so much the Council can do.
I spent time in the Yorkshire Dales last week, and the Isle of Man a couple of months earlier. Both places were spotless. So, either southerners are more dirty, or our councils are less good at tidying up. Which is it?
I have just randomly checked local newspapers for litter stories from seaside resorts north, east, south and West. From Bournmoth to Blackpool, without exception, there were stories about litter problems on their beaches.
I also spotted this one:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv22vzn02k9o
Probably visiting southerners (yours truly excluded, of course).
The trouble is, this is a small, outstanding beach which is advertised every year. It has one pub and very little car parking. The amount of people that go to this lovely beach is increasing at a rate of knots and who can blame them for wanting to come, but,the area just cannot cope.
Really saggy?
Any time of day?
The refuse crew’s work from 6.am till 2.15pm. They are stopped by TDC 45 minutes for a break during that time.
They use Government acre as there is a toilet there and also a cafe nearby to grab a coffee and something to eat.
Word is out. Its too late to prevent yhe influx to Botany Bay. I walked along there on Sunday evening. It was horrendous with people picnicking in very large groups and adding their rubbish to the piles already there. What a joke for us locals and those kind people who collect rubbish from the beaches only litter of you leave it. They should take it home in any case.
Until the problem of parking is sorted, nothing will change. I don’t know of any other seaside town where you can park all day for nothing on the clifftop, or in a camper van on the pavement outside the Winter Gardens currently!! I feel so sorry for the poor residents in Kingsgate having to put up with this year in, year out. I believe Botany Road tried to get residents only parking some while back. If the council started charging for parking, the revenue would help to pay for the wardens to patrol and extra street cleaning.
As a visitor to Ramsgate ,Broadstairs,Margate I found these areas to be litter strewn dirty unkempt in general and these are tourist areas !!! Put out better bigger bins and empty them regularly !!!? Simple isn’t it,the council are not doing their job are they ,get some pride back into your areas .
As previously alluded to, a significant amount of bagged household waste is left by overflowing bins or on pavements which I suspect comes from AnB’s where no thought is giving by the owners to disposal and compounds the problem. I would be interested to hear what TDC have to say on short term lets.
We sometimes watch with interest, (a bit David Attenborough), as the people who live in a very smart & well-maintained property close to us make evening / early morning forays to local bins to stuff ’em full of their ordinary household rubbish. If a bin is full, they leave it all on the pavement. I suspect that this particular species also leave their old white goods etc. by the bins.
Don’t use binoculars, don’t peer in their windows but does seem that their large home is inhabited by relatively few people. They have a few cars but I guess they don’t like taking smelly stuff to the dump in shiny motors. When challenged (once!) they can be aggressive, possibly dangerous.
I used to chat to them. Don’t feel like it any more.
Just got back from the northeast and it made the local news there. Sad to think it made the news up there
Botany Bay has made the front page of another Thanet newspaper, this time because of the filthy toilets with waste running down the steps! Now surely THAT is TDC’s responsibility to sort out?
STOP TALKING ABOUT IT AND GET IT SORTED – THE COUNCIL MEMBERS OF THE ISLANDS COUNCILS NEED TO GET OUT THERE WITH THEIR BAGS (well done Cllr Garner) AND PICK UP THE LITTER TO SEE WHAT THE OVERSTRETCHED LITTER PICKERS (PAID AND VOLUNTEERS) HAVE TO DEAL WITH. SHAMEFUL WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY DISCUSSING IT, GET ON WITH IT NOW
How about as we saw with the rioting yobbos they start getting arrested & prosecuted? You would see it cut significantly then, just as we saw when the first jail sentences came down last week & the Nazi saluting hooligans going out causing mayhem suddenly dropped by around 90%.
Weed ridden,graffiti ridden,litter ridden,rusty metal work ridden,silted up drains ridden,overhanging dangerous trees ridden,pot hole ridden…..what the hell am im paying council tax for!
No GP appointments for years, no NHS dentists for years. What is anybody still paying Ni contributions for?
Has all that rubbish come from that one small shop ?
If not it means people brought it with them, so why not take it home ?