Additional reporting by Gabriel Morris

Fines for dropping cigarette butts in high street planters have been overturned - because they look like ashtrays.

They have been installed in St George’s Street as part of a £1 million Canterbury City Council project to transform the busy shopping strip into a high street “boulevard”.

A number of new benches have been put in place, including several with planters attached to them - but only one has any foliage, with the rest riddled with litter.

Now it has emerged that hundreds of pounds worth of fixed penalty notices issued to people who dropped cigarette butts into the soil-filled containers have been cancelled.

City council cabinet member for enforcement Cllr Connie Nolan (Lab) raised the issue at a meeting this week.

“In St George’s Street we’ve had a bit of a problem with the planters on the edge of the benches,” she told fellow cabinet members.

“I immediately got on to [a council officer] and said, ‘I want every fine that’s been given for people to use those as an ashtray to be rescinded. Because if they look like an ashtray people are going to use them as an ashtray,’ and she said, ‘Connie I’ve already done it.’

“So let’s pay tribute to the officers. They are on the ball.”

The city council’s website says littering usually incurs a £200 fixed penalty notice (FPN), dropping to £100 if paid within 10 days.

A spokesman said the authority’s records of fines are not detailed enough to give numbers on how many were withdrawn, but that “we do believe it to be a very small number”.

When KentOnline visited St George’s Street this week, the planters were filled with plastic wrappers, the occasional vape or vape box, and scores of cigarette ends.

John Shilling, while sat on one of the benches, said: “Doesn’t that go with the territory? You put something out like that and it attracts rubbish.”

However, regarding the waiving of fines, the lifelong Canterbury resident said: “It’s a total waste of time. It’s not a deterrent if you know you’re not going to be fined for it.”

The overhaul of St George’s Street was completed last summer, with critics describing the new paving as making the area “look like Essex”.

Mr Shilling says he likes the new look but is disappointed with “the way people decide to treat it”.

Passer-by Rosemary Delo said: “I just think it’s an eyesore and it needs dealing with ASAP.

“Unfortunately what happens is people sit down, smoke while waiting for their wives shopping or something and throw their cigarette butts in there.”

Even the one planter with a shrub was marred by cigarette butts and other detritus when we visited.

“Maybe it’s the cigarettes that have killed the plants,” said Antoinette Luck, out doing some shopping.

“People are assuming they’re bins. It would be nicer if the planters were actually planted in.”

Heather Russell said: “It doesn’t look very nice in the plant pots.”

The city council spokesman told KentOnline the planters are cleaned every day.

“The decision to cancel these [fines] was an operational decision taken entirely legitimately several months ago by a manager responsible for the enforcement service due to concerns raised by some people who had received FPNs that they thought they were bins,” he said.

“We accept that maintaining these and preventing them from being used for litter has been a challenge since we installed them, and we are working to put a plan in place to ensure they help the city centre look the best it can.”

Litter enforcement companies in Canterbury have hit the headlines before. In 2021 KentOnline revealed that contractors Kingdom had dished out 96% of fines to those dropping cigarette butts.

At Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, during a discussion on the tendering of a new contract for enforcement officers, Cllr Michael Dixey (Lib Dem) said: “My concern is that in the past the contractors have gone for the easy wins – dropping the fag-end rather than graffiti, serious littering, or fly-tipping.

“I wonder whether this will be any different – the financial incentive encourages them to go for the easy quick wins rather than the more difficult cases which take much more time.”

But Cllr Nolan said: “There’s no financial incentive for the operators, they’re paid a fixed wage.

“I take your point that people have made that there could be a financial incentive for the company but for the individual operator there isn’t.”

A report says the current enforcement contract with NES doesn’t directly cost the council anything - but income from fines is split, with 70% going to the contractor, and 30% to the local authority.

A council officer explained to the cabinet: “We review the figures and stats monthly as to where the tickets have been issued, why the tickets have been issued, the profile of customers that have been issued tickets.

“We do this specifically to make sure we’re targeting the right areas, and that there are no parts of our community that are being unfairly targeted.”

The cabinet voted to put the enforcement contract out to tender, and the exact split on income from fines will be determined in future.