Council's £1m highstreet transformation in tatters after smokers use planters like 'ashtrays' - but they won't be fined

Every planter - with the exception of one - featured just soil.

It is understood that hundreds of pounds worth of fines have been issued in relation to cigarette butts being thrown into the soil-filled containers.

However, the council has overturned the fixed penalty notices after admitting the installations looked like ashtrays.

Cllr Connie Nolan, the Labour cabinet member for enforcement, raised the issue at a meeting this week.

She said: "In St George’s Street we’ve had a bit of a problem with the planters on the edge of the benches.

"I immediately got on to [a council officer] and said, ‘I want every fine that’s been given for people to use those as an ashtray to be rescinded. Because if they look like an ashtray people are going to use them as an ashtray’.

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"And she said, ‘Connie, I’ve already done it'."

The council’s website states that littering typically results in a £200 fixed penalty, which is reduced to £100 if paid within 10 days.

"I just think it’s an eyesore and it needs dealing with as soon as possible," Rosemary Delo, a resident, told Kent Online.

"Unfortunately what happens is people sit down, smoke while waiting for their wives shopping or something and throw their cigarette butts in there."

Heather Russell added: "It doesn’t look very nice in the plant pots."

A Canterbury City Council spokesperson: "The decision to cancel these [fines] was an operational decision taken entirely legitimately several months ago by a manager responsible for the enforcement service due to concerns raised by some people who had received fixed penalty notices that they thought they were bins.

"We accept that maintaining these and preventing them from being used for litter has been a challenge since we installed them, and we are working to put a plan in place to ensure they help the city centre look the best it can."