Community wardens have removed the equivalent weight of five school buses in dumped waste from the alleyways of North East Lincolnshire over the last year.

The figures come in spite of criticism labelled at the wardens by some readers of the Telegraph.In a recent online poll at www.thisisgrimsby.co.uk 81 per cent of voters said “no” to the question: “Do you think community wardens are effective in the role?”Councillor Steve Beasant (Liberal Democrat, East Marsh), the portfolio holder for Neighbourhoods and Communities at North East Lincolnshire Council, believes the figure proves just how useful the wardens are.

 Cllr Beasant said: “Believe you me, the council do not have to remove that waste, we could leave it and let it mount up.“If we did, potentially we would have rat infestation, because a great deal of it was food waste, old nappies and other rubbish that causes environmental problems.

Other statistics revealed about the work carried out by wardens in 2008…They have removed 9,820 pieces of graffiti since January 2008.

• Wardens have raised 24,457 incident reports since July – reports of issues or problems in our community.
• The Wardens have supervised a total of 1,536 probation hours in the community payback scheme.
• A total of 32 burnt out vehicles and 31 abandoned vehicles have been removed this year.
• The Wardens issued more than 70 fixed penalty notices for instances of litter-dropping, for example, up to the end of September.
• Throughout the borough, 12 drop-in calls were made and 69 schools education packages were delivered.
• Wardens are also helping to tackle anti-social behaviour with weekly sports events on Grimsby’s Nunsthorpe and Grange estates.

Councillor Beasantis urging residents to help the wardens out – highlighting the fact that if they didn’t have so much waste to remove, money would be saved to put into other services. He also points out that a great deal of the waste could have actually have been recycled.

He said:

“I believe it is costing the local authority about £2-million.

“If people acted more responsibly, we could potentially be providing more teachers for instance or more road sweepers, or providing a few more community buildings or youth workers.

“If we stop doing this from tomorrow, we can provide a lot better services for the local authority.

”Tony Burman, senior warden of the neighbourhood safety scheme, said:

“We have some fantastic wardens and we are trying to get things sorted out and trying to help the community.“We have had a lot of success and it’s a shame we have been getting this bad press because a lot of the time, we don’t deserve it.“The people out there are really dedicated people and they all join to help the community.”