COLCHESTER’S litter police handed out the highest number of fines yet at the weekend.

Six of the council’s enforcement officers were patrolling the town centre on Friday and Saturday.

Figures show across the two days, which focussed on catching people dropping cigarette ends in particular, a total of 73 fixed penalty notices were issued.

Eleven of these were for acts of antisocial behaviour and 60 were for littering.

There were two other fixed penalty notices for offences which could not be clarified.

Previous weekends of action have seen, on average, 50 fines being issued.

The notices come with a £100 fine, meaning £7,300 of fines were dished out over the weekend.

Martin Goss, councillor responsible for waste, said is was sad to see the figure rising.

He said: “In some respects it is disappointing the figure has gone up as it was starting to go on a downward trend.

“We don’t want people to be getting into trouble. This is not for money-making, it’s about educating people.

“Hopefully those 73 people will not do it again, and those who have committed an offence will learn from it.”

The team of enforcement officers from private firm Artemis were in operation between 6pm and 3am.

This was the fourth in a series of enforcement events scheduled to take place over the coming months.

Colchester Council will pay Artemis £50,000 and will recoup the fine money.

As part of Colchester Council’s Better Colchester initiative, campaigns around dropping chewing gum, fly-tipping and graffiti have also been planned for the near future.

The council has set aside £2 million to deliver a two-year action plan to make Colchester a

“better place”.

The enforcement officers will be out again before the end of the year but dates have not been confirmed.