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Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Answer

Mr. Pike: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what costings have been done to assess whether a similar campaign to the Keep Britain Tidy campaign would be (a) timely and (b) prudent. [86020] Alun Michael: ENCAMS will play an important role in supporting the Government's agenda of improving the local environment and people's quality of life by running high-profile campaigns each year based around Local Environmental Quality and Litter issues. Campaigns planned for 2003 include a focus on fly- tipping, car litter, fly-posting and youth litter and these initiatives are in effect a continuation of the Keep Britain Tidy Campaign year on year. I met the director of ENCAMS, Alan Woods (Environmental Campaigns which is the current name of the Tidy Britain Group) today to discuss the organisation's work which is focussed on making a real difference at a local level, which is where we need to influence public attitudes and behaviour. In parallel to the Government's policy to make a significant impact on the antisocial behaviour, litter, graffiti and noise which spoils the quality of lives in so many places, ENCAMS has developed tools which help their local authority partners to target real local problems. These include a set of posters to challenge people who allow their dogs to foul local parks. Evaluation has shown that a significant improvement has been achieved in areas where these havebeen used as part of a local campaign. We are encouraging ENCAMS to spread information about successful local campaigns so that lessons learned can help to improve the quality of life for people in other areas too. This fits with efforts by ministers in DEFRA, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Home Office to give a high profile to tackling quality of life issues nationally while promoting action at the local level in conjunction with the Local Government Associate and other partners. Joanne Whitaker, ENCAMS5 Director for the North West Region, would be more than happy to meet the hon.Member to talk about the future of local litter campaigns and programmes. More details of ENCAMS campaigns as well as promotional material can be obtained via their website: http://www.encams.org.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

86020; 396 c316-7W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Environment protection Litter Publicity ENCAMS

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk