COUNCILLORS are being asked to agree that officials write to the Scottish Government regarding litter management on trunk roads in Argyll and Bute.
A report regarding the A82, A83, A85 and A828 is to go before a committee after another council agreed to request a national review on the matter.
East Lothian Council has requested a review of litter management on the A1, while it is believed that at least one other council supports such a request.
The details feature in a report to Argyll and Bute Council’s environment, development and infrastructure committee on Thursday, September 11.
Executive director Kirsty Flanagan said: “Council resource relating to cleansing and litter management is contained within the operations, roads and infrastructure services budgets. There is no specific allocation of budget explicitly for litter prevention or collection along the trunk road network.
“Litter is not caused by the council but by the behaviour of individuals. This contributes to the pressures on local services.
“Due to the speed and volume of traffic, litter picking at the side of trunk roads presents a generally higher level of safety risk to council staff than does litter picking at the side of council-managed roads, many of which have slower average traffic speeds and where litter picking is almost entirely focused on the points that these roads travel through centres of population.
“As a consequence the measures required to ensure the safety of council staff during these activities are more costly.
“As the council only undertakes litter picking and not any other maintenance activities it is not often possible to coordinate litter picking with other maintenance activities that could be done jointly under one set of traffic management and thereby increase the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the operations overall.
“A national review of litter picking responsibilities in relation to trunk roads would create the opportunity to consider whether the current approach whereby local councils undertake this duty offers the best value for money overall to the public purse.
“Or whether transferring this duty to the companies contracted by Transport Scotland to manage and maintain the truck road network could offer improved efficiencies while also enabling councils to focus our available resources on local priorities.”
Ms Flanagan added: “The council has received correspondence that demonstrates at least one other council, Dumfries and Galloway, have written to Scottish Ministers supporting a request for a national review of litter picking responsibilities in relation to trunk roads.”
