Abandoned Shopping Trolleys - Consultations

Bolton Council seeks enforcement powers to tackle abandoned trolleys

Bolton Council is seeking views on whether they should tackle the issue of abandoned shopping trolleys.  Abandoned trolleys are found all over the borough due to being dumped by shoppers. They are an eyesore, encourage flytipping and are damaging to the environment.

The council are consulting on two methods we would like to take to deal with abandoned shopping trolleys. We would like to adopt powers available under national legislation, and to set up a local scheme which would be voluntary.

1) National legislation

Under the Clean Neighbourhoods Act 2005, authorities are allowed to introduce charges for the seizure and the storage of the trolleys, as well as for the disposal of the trolleys if the retailers responsible for them are not able to collect them within six weeks.

What would retailers be charged?

A storage cost of £5 per day per trolley will apply to retailers and a charge of £50 for the initial collection by the council will also be payable.  Retailers can request the return of each trolley collected by the council for which a charge of £100 per trolley will apply. This shall be in addition to the daily storage charge that shall be payable.

These enforcement powers would enable the council to deal with the abandoned trollies that continue to blight our borough and hamper our ongoing commitment to a cleaner and greener Bolton.

2) Voluntary scheme

All local retailers who provide shopping trolleys would be invited to sign up to a voluntary scheme.  Retailers would be told where their abandoned shopping trolley had been found and asked to remove it by 5pm the next working day, notifying the council once they'd collected it.  Any retailers who decided not to join the voluntary scheme, or who didn't remove their abandoned trolley by the deadline would be charged in line with national legislation

Bolton Council feel that a voluntary scheme will help us to work with responsible retailers and reduce the numbers of shopping trolleys that are abandoned and unclaimed within the Bolton borough.

Ahead of the decision being made, we are keen to hear from residents and stakeholders about their views of the proposal and experience of abandoned shopping trolleys. 

This survey has now closed.

If you require a paper copy of the survey or would like support to complete the survey, please contact the consultation team on 01204 334875, leaving your name, address and telephone number and the name of the consultation you are interested in, ‘Abandoned Shopping Trollies’.

Findings from the consultation.