A PRIVATE litter and dog fouling enforcement team will be disbanded, despite it leading to a much cleaner town centre, councillors have decided.

Darlington Borough Council’s cabinet said the private contract would end on March 31 and in future the authority’s community safety team would be relied upon to tackle those illegally leaving mess behind.

Councillor Nick Wallis, the council’s leisure and local environment boss, told a meeting of the council’s leading members that there had been a political consensus about launching a private litter enforcement team and it appeared to have yielded some results on the ground.

He said: “I cannot remember a time for a long time when the town centre has looked so free of litter.”

However, Cllr Wallis said the council had been “under no illusions about how Kingdom Service Group operated” before the launch of the trial scheme, citing how the vast majority of the fixed penalty notices they issued were over cigarette ends.

However, he said he had not appreciated how people were caught.

Conservative group leader Councillor Heather Scott said she had also been alarmed by Kingdom’s operational methods.

She said people who inadvertently dropped litter while pulling out a handkerchief and a woman who mistakenly dropped a sweet paper had been targeted.

Cllr Wallis told members: “Effectively they were following people. Cigarette smokers are people of habit, they smoke their cigarette and throw it. It’s not legal they shouldn’t do that, but Kingdom were clearly targeting those people. It certainly made me feel uncomfortable.”

Cllr Wallis said, in addition, the council’s staff had been left to manage Kingdom’s enforcement workers.

He said: “Kingdom have not impressed. From very early on they have been a big disappointment, not in terms of the staff, but down to their supervision, management and ability to liaise with council officers. They have been incredibly difficult to get hold of. It looks to me like private sector environmental crime enforcement is something of a dead end.”

Kingdom issued only one fine for dog fouling during the first three months of the trial and Cllr Scott said it continued to be “a major issue” in the town.

Councillor Chris McEwan highlighted that the authority was not “ditching the penalty approach”, but it would also be important to empower residents to encourage others not to drop litter.

Kingdom Support Group was unavailable for comment.