GWYNEDD Council is reconsidering its options following the recent botched trial with a street cleaning enforcement agency.

The local authority’s communities scrutiny committee will meet today (19 April) to discuss how the council will keep the county’s streets clean and dog mess-free.

In February of this year, the council contracted Kingdom Services Group to enforce fines and penalties on litterers but the trial was brought to a close after only a few days by mutual consent.

New ideas to improve services could include asking other council workers to become street enforcement agents as part of their other day-to-day job or asking North Wales Police to assist.

The council is looking to be “more firm” with dealing with people who drop litter on the street or allow their dog to foul paths and pavements, following a public consultation in 2016 which showed 55 per cent of Gwynedd residents were in favour of the council using an external company to undertake the enforcement work.

As a result of that consultation, the number of staff in the street enforcement unit was reduced from seven to five in order to achieve an annual saving of £64,500.

This also led to the scrutiny committee’s decision to consider the use of an external company to assist in the enforcement work and at no cost to the council.

The county council is now considering five possible options including: seeking another external company to carry out a trial in the county; to collaborate with other neighbouring authorities in order to improve the provision; re-consider the current staffing levels of the street enforcement unit; further interdepartmental collaboration whereby staff from other council departments are delegated street enforcement powers; and seek North Wales Police assistance with street enforcement.