Dartford Council has defended its litter police contract following an investigation which accused the enforcement company of using "aggressive tactics" when issuing fines.

According to The Guardian, whistleblowers within Kingdom have accused staff of targeting vulnerable and elderly people for littering as they were most likely to pay the fines.

It was also accused of allegedly employing a training team which taught officers to "hide in bushes" in an attempt to catch more people.

Kingdom have since "refuted" these claims, stating that "none of the practises" which were alleged in the Guardian article were part of their training and standards.

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The council, which signed a four-year contract with Kingdom in 2016, has defended the arrangement with the company.

Council leader Jeremy Kite: "I know some people like to knock litter officers but I guess the real question is whether law-abiding people want the small minority who drop litter or cigarette ends to face no consequences.

"The way private contractors work is very much down to the way councils draw up their contracts and here in Dartford we have made it clear that we did not want officers to be set targets and that we want them to be open and professional on duty.

"The result is we have very few complaints although people are obviously sometimes unhappy or embarrassed to have been stopped."

According to a council report from last September, a total of 6,965 fixed penalty notices were issued by Kingdom officers between January 2016, and July 2018.

A breakdown of these figures showed 6,540 fines were for dropped cigarette butts.

Cllr Kite also said on this matter: "It’s true that the vast majority of fines relate to dropping cigarette butts but that’s because it’s the most common offence to take place.

"The officers will deal with the offences they witness."

The same report also showed that over the same period of time, 6,054 fines were issued within Dartford town centre which made up the majority of those issued.

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Labour candidate for Swanscombe, Claire Pearce, feels that not enough is being done to deal with litter in the surrounding areas and questions why not enough patrols have visited her town.

"The Conservatives have done nothing to tackle the awful litter in Swanscombe.

"They’ve ignored this area for the last four years and there is nothing in place to reduce the litter on our streets. We never see patrols here.

"I want to see more litter bins and more street cleaning patrols to keep Swanscombe tidy," she said.

This comes after Dartford Labour said it will be seeking to scrap the council's current contract with Kingdom as it feels there has been no visible reduction in litter since the company was employed.

However, Cllr Kite said that since the company has been working with the council, there have been no repeat litter offenders.

"Perhaps the most telling statistic is that in the first two years of the scheme not a single ticket had to be issued to the same person twice.

"That’s either quite a coincidence or it means that the penalty is having the desired effect and causing people to think twice before dropping litter or flicking away a cigarette end.

" At the end of the day, the way to avoid fines is not to drop litter and the vast majority of decent, law-abiding people seem to find it easy enough to do that," he said.

Kingdom is also employed by the neighbouring borough of Bexley for the same purposes.