{"id":1088,"date":"2013-07-17T00:08:09","date_gmt":"2013-07-16T23:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abbeylandsresidents.org.uk\/?p=1088"},"modified":"2013-09-03T09:56:03","modified_gmt":"2013-09-03T08:56:03","slug":"can-littering-affect-house-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/abbeylands\/can-littering-affect-house-prices\/","title":{"rendered":"Can littering affect house prices?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"litter\"<\/a>Apparently the Scottish Government thinks so and has totted up the total to a bewildering \u00a325 million. Wow! I wonder what methodology was used and what the confidence interval is? +\/- \u00a315 million? [1. A final significant area looked at for this study was the potential for litter to impact house prices. Taking a low end estimate of the possible effect of litter on house prices (where it can affect both the valuer\u2019s and buyer\u2019s perception), and assuming this might apply to just 1% of Scotland\u2019s housing\u00a0stock, still gave a very significant cumulative figure of \u00a3100 million. The Eunomia research team believes this figure should be treated with caution in the Scottish context. However, even if the impact on Scottish house prices is a fraction of the initial estimate, it would still be a figure counted in millions.]<\/p>\n

We want our National Litter Strategy to achieve a cleaner, safer environment for people who live in and visit Scotland – where littering is no longer acceptable. The strategy we are consulting on is a package of measures to encourage people not to litter or flytip.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anyway, if you live in a town, chances are you agree that littering is a continuing problem. Don’t believe what you are told (it is cleaned at 7:00am every morning) – believe what you see (It is not clean by 11:00am). Litter comes in many shapes and forms, though the law takes a different view depending on the form. Urine – a liquid waste doesn’t seem to count, unless a human is passing it! A recent one, as far as I can see is depositing the contents of a unwanted drink in a nice pattern on the pavement or around a bin – it stays there for weeks and weeks if there’s no rain. The law has little to say about this, and I guess all sorts of other sticky deposits. Accidents can happen – hey ho – but question is how do they happen with such regularity? Is it our (vulgar) appetites to consume stuff regardless of the time of day? No doubt that contributes and small whiney children protesting violently that it must have this or that and then throw a fit[2. I am also reliably informed that Community Wardens can only politely ask ‘unders’ (under the age of 18) to pick their litter up and that even the police can only issue a ticket to adults if the the individual refuses to pick up.].<\/p>\n

But is \u00a0increasing fines for littering, as planned by the Scottish Government, the way to tackle an issue that costs tens of millions (and this is an easy fact to calculate) a year to deal with\u00a0the answer? What if those millions were spent on town and street improvements instead?\u00a0This is certainly pretty tantalising, but are the litter bugs still reading? Can they read or even do the math?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Zero Waste Scotland reckons that \u00a353 million is spent clearing up litter alone, while more than \u00a316 million is spent on cleanup costs and wildlife rescue along our coastlines. I wonder whether this includes the free cost of people like me that pick up behind litter bugs? Here are some headline points from the report<\/a>:<\/p>\n