Wednesday February 18th 2026
Drivers of taxis and private cars ignore the double yellow lines outside Linlithgow's Burgh Halls.
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Stuart Sommerville
Councillors have backed the introduction of service standards governing cleaner streets.
But one councillor fears the new standards will be used to generate income through fines on shopkeepers.
Tackling commercial waste bins sitting on pavements is a key element to the new plans but some shopkeepers believe they will face fines while they have no control over when commercial waste operators lift their bins.
Sally Pattle, Lib Dem for Linlithgow, who runs a bookshop in the town, raised an amendment calling for consultation with traders across West Lothian before introducing the new rules.
“No official consultation with the business community has been carried out, “Councillor Pattle told a meeting of the council’s Executive.
She said traders feared that the council would start enforcement with traders facing fines over collection times they could not control with commercial operators.
Interim NETs Land and Countryside Manager Victoria Mungall stressed that the council saw enforcement as a last resort, adding the council wanted to work with traders and the commercial refuse operators to improve services.
Councillor Pattle told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that budget proposals to be decided next week indicated increasing the council’s income through enforcement fines.
Fellow Linlithgow Councillor Pauline Orr pointed out that many shops in Linlithgow had difficulty storing bins and asked how officers could “reasonably enforce new rules.”
Ms Mungall told the meeting: “It’s important to note that by bringing in the service standards there’s no change to the legislative powers that we currently hold so at the moment we do fine bins that cause obstruction under the Section 56 of the Roads Scotland Act.
“It’s important to note that our intentions of bringing standards forward doesn’t change. It is not intended that we’d penalise businesses for situations where a bin has been left out over collection time or there’s a storage issue that becomes apparent.
“What we intend to do is work with businesses to determine a better pace for them to have their waste collected and to offer support on how we can work to better have their waste collected.”
Linlithgow’s Labour councillor Tom Conn suggested adopting Councillor Pattle’s amendment would leave the council without any of its existing power of enforcement.
The amendment gained the support of only two Conservative councillors on the Executive. The SNP’s three members of the committee- including Councillor Orr- abstained.
Apart from the concerns about the potential enforcement for commercial waste collection problems there was broad welcome across the chamber for the pledge to improve services.
The wider policy agreed covers service delivery times for street cleaning in towns and villages and fly-tipping.
Ms Mungalltold the meeting the plan “places particular emphasis on education behaviour change, enforcement and community ownership.”
She added: “This will be supported by improved monitoring so that we can better understand trends and target resources where they have the greatest impact.”
The introduction of the new service standards within its Cleaner Communities Team, as well as a new Litter Prevention Action Plan (LPAP) for 2026/27.
The standards set out how the council will work to tackle environmental issues such as littering, fly tipping, graffiti, dog fouling and more, through a combination of education, enhanced infrastructure, community engagement and more stringent enforcement- including the use of more mobile CCTV to tackling hotspots for fly-tipping and streamlining of existing technologies.
The area has already seen an improvement in performance in the independent litter audits from Keep Scotland Beautiful, increasing to 90.2% in January 2026. However the council still lags behind a national figure of 91%
A council spokesperson told the LDRS: “The introduction of new service standards for both proactive and responsive work, appointment of an external contractor and modernisation of the Urban Clean Team is expected to lead to further progress in the future.”
Councillor Conn, the Executive councillor for the environment and sustainability said: “I welcome this new focus on West Lothian’s environment, which takes a holistic approach to try and tackle the challenges.
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