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Clean Streets Enforcers make £523K in under 3 Years

Clean Streets Enforcers make £523K in under 3 Years

Between 2023 and July 2025 3GS (on behalf of Bristol City Council) have issued £525,275 in Fixed Penalty Notices for offences under the "Clean Streets Enforcement Campaign".

Insights

£502,875 (96%) of all fines were for Littering.

The top 3 Wards for fines were:

  • Central - with 43% of all fines
  • St Georges Central - with 23% of all fines
  • Ashley - with 8% of all fines

There are 3 Wards where no fines have been issued during this period.

  • Henbury and Brentry
  • Hillfields
  • Southfield

Wards

The vast majority of patrols are carried out in the Central Ward. I assume this is because 3GS can issue the most fines in this area.

There appears to have been a blitz in St Georges Central in 2024 when 120K of fines were issued, but there were none issued in 2023 or 2025.

In June 2023 BCC published this:

The council currently work with 3GS to enforce environmental fines. Officers operate across a large area of the city focusing on issues known to be a priority for residents, including fly tipping, fly posting, commercial waste, failure to clear up dog mess, abandoned vehicles and graffiti tagging.
Since 2017 Bristol City Council has issued over 30,000 fixed penalty notices for environmental offences and 2,500 people have been taken to court for non-payment.

It is clear that 3GS do not "operate across a large area of the city" and that they concentrate the vast majority of their enforcement activities against people in the centre, some of whom are unlikely to be Bristol residents.

Categories of Fines

See Clean Streets Enforcement Campaign for descriptions of these categories.

Whilst over half a million pounds are for littering fines, only £1,675 of fines have been handed out for Fly Tipping. £875 in Lawrence Hill Ward and £800 in Central Ward, which probably equates to 2 fines issued in 2023 and 1 in 2024, with no Fly Tipping fines being issued in 2025 (so far).

Fly Tipping is a massive problem in Bristol as evidenced by the fact that so far in 2025 there have been almost 8,000 reports of Fly Tipping in Bristol. The majority of these are in Lawrence Hill and it is clear that 3GS are not deterring Fly Tipping in Bristol.

Contract Information

The contract with 3GS to provide Environmental Enforcement services was extended for another 4 years in Dec 2023.

Option 1 - Doing Nothing: If no action is taken, the momentum and behavioural changes towards cleaner streets achieved by the first two contracts would be lost. This inaction would also miss the opportunity to further impact street cleanliness.
Option 2 - Expanding the BCC In-House Enforcement Team: Establishing a comparable in-house service to external contractors would cost approximately £730,365 annually. This includes substantial recurring expenses for digital infrastructure. For BCC to see a return on this investment, its performance must consistently exceed that of the two existing contracts. The primary goal is to change public behaviour, leading to reduced environmental crime, evidenced by fewer Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) and reduced income, which would mean these costs would need to be covered by the local authority.
Option 3 - Procuring a Concession Arrangement with a Third-Party Organisation: Engaging an external enforcement company could increase enforcement in Bristol. Additional revenues generated would contribute to environmental improvements, as seen in the previous contracts. This is the recommended option.

Where does the money go?

3GS are using a fixed fee model. This means enforcement officers will earn a set amount from their patrolling duties. 3GS will use any extra funds from FPNs for education and promotional purposes. (from BCC Website).

I cannot find any information about any "education and promotional" activities carried out by 3GS, so I assume that there are no "extra funds" over and above the cost of 3GS providing this service. It is not clear if BCC take a percentage of the fines.

This implies that BCC pay nothing for this service and hope that the fines given out will deter people from carrying out "Environmental Crimes". But as 3GS appear to concentrate on fining people from littering in the Central Ward, it is difficult to see how this will deter people who don't clean up after their dogs, or the people who defecate in public places. From the data it appears that main group of people who will be deterred are litter droppers in Central Ward (probably Broadmead, the Bus Station and Temple Meads).

3GS offer this service in order to make as profit, so it is unlikely that they will send Officers to areas where they aren't going to be able to issue a lot of fines. BCC will not require 3GS to patrol all Wards because that would run the risk of 3GS pulling out of the contract as they did in Bradford, when the contract became "unprofitable".

Bristol World published a news story about 3GS in Jul 2023:

Public transport and disability campaigners say officials working on behalf of the city council are lying in wait to issue £100 fines at hubs, including the central bus station and Temple Meads, and have called the practice a “major concern”. The local authority says it will raise the issue with its current contractor 3GS, which enforces littering offences, and that the company’s role is to “educate and inform” the public and businesses, not just hit them with fixed penalty notices (FPNs). Bristol City Council has also admitted that its efforts to stop smokers being fined in massive numbers have failed, with 19 out of every 20 FPNs post-pandemic being for dropped cigarette butts.
In a statement to the meeting, David Redgewell and Gordon Richardson, of Bristol Disability Equality Forum, said: “We have noticed the environment enforcement officers targeting passengers who have put down cups outside the cafes outside the main bus station entrance. “Bus and coach drivers have been targeted whilst having their breaks, sitting outside the station.” They said it gave passengers travelling from afar a poor first impression of the city – threatening them with fines – and that it had caused “distress for disabled people”.
The campaigners said: “Bristol City Council does not provide litter bins in the area of the cafes.

The Big Issue reported on 3GS in 2023: 'I was fined £100 for dropping crisps': How a private firm is making millions from littering fines.

Millicent Weaver, a 21-year-old student at the University of Manchester, believes that FPN officers fine young people unfairly. She was fined £75 for dropping a cigarette butt two years ago. But an older woman next to her did the same and was not fined. Weaver added: “I saw the same officer watching a woman smoking, this woman seemed to be dressed smartly and she was outside Nationwide Bank. Once this woman was coming to the end of her cigarette, the officer turned away, just as this woman dropped her cigarette butt on the floor.” 
Weaver said that she questioned the officer as to why she had to pay the fine but not the other lady. The officer in turn replied aggressively telling her to leave him alone, or he would report her to the police for being uncooperative.
She added: “It felt as though young people like myself are more of a target for fines like this.”

Source of Data

I got this data by submitting a Freedom of Information Request to Bristol City Council. I asked for the date each FPN was issued, but BCC would only provide the year and the total fines for each ward. I was not provided with the number of fines.

You can explore my report on BU Reports (look for the Fixed Penalties button.

BCC do publish this data about these fines:

Number of people

  • 2023/2024: 6112
  • 2024/2025: 4976
  • April 2025: 480
  • May 2025: 454

Gender:

  • Female: 46.84 %
  • Male: 53.16 %

Age range:

  • 18: 1.74%
  • 19: 2.97%
  • 20 to 29: 37.29%
  • 30 to 39: 26.18%
  • 40 to 49: 13.58%
  • 50 to 59: 8.71%
  • 60 to 69: 0.53%
  • Not known: 9.09%

There have been a number of FOI Requests made to BCC about FPN Data:

I want to regularly update my report on these FPNs, but the only way I can do that is to put in more FOI requests. I will submit another one in Jan 2026 so that I can get the data for July to Dec 2025. It would be much more efficient and transparent if BCC published this data on a monthly basis as "Open Data" as other Councils already do.

Examples of Councils that regularly publish Environmental FPN data as "Open Data"

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