Calls for hardline approach to trolley folly

THERE are calls in the community for a crackdown on trolley dumping, with twelve found recently within a small area on Grevillea Road, not far from Stockland Wendouree.

City of Ballarat’s Cr Ben Taylor has been calling for changes to current trolley laws for months, saying they aren’t acting as a deterrent, yet so far there has been no action.

“When you go out Wendouree way it seems to be rampant,” he said. “Nothing has really changed.

“Once you get one or two it seems to be popular to put as many as possible in one spot.”

The City’s current trolley rules come under Community Local Law 2017, which prohibits abandoning trolleys on roads or vacant land.

It also stipulates that companies are responsible for their collection, however Cr Taylor said large corporations are failing to do so.

“Supermarkets aren’t going and picking up the trolleys when they’re abandoned,” he said.

“It comes down to an economic point of view, it costs money to collect trolleys or pay a third party to do it.”

Cr Taylor said the time for incentivising corporations to collect their trolleys is over, and a hardline approach is necessary to curb this problem.

“I think now it’s about a stick more than incentives, it’s about the penalties that can apply if they’re abandoned,” he said.

“We’ve provided that opportunity when there’s not really any restrictions so now there needs to be more of a penalty.”