A PARISH council is considering charging people tax for a professional litter-picker in a radical move to rid the streets of rubbish.

Residents of Warndon Villages could be asked to pay an extra £3 in their council tax to employ a full-time picker.

Warndon Parish Council member Dawn Merriman said: "Litter is an emotive issue. We need to look at other ways of funding a litter-pick on this estate and we need to get residents' views."

Fellow council member Ray Morris said: "It's all very well to ask for parishioners' opinions but we all know we won't get any.

"If we want to make the parish better we should ask them to pay for it."

Several council members agreed that £1.75 a year per person to fund a part-time litter picker could be the best move.

The radical step comes as previous moves, such as organising voluntary picks and hiring out litter picking sticks, met with only partial success.

Current litter blackspots in the area include:

l Garden waste dumped on a pathway between Millwood Drive and Trotshill Lane West.

l Tesco supermarket trollies abandoned in Warndon Wood.

l Litter strewn in Saltwood Drive and Bodiam Avenue.

l Rubbish bins overflowing at bus stops.

The litter tax proposal came as council members rowed over how much to increase their proportion of the council tax. Mr Morris, member in charge of finance, said he had looked at a five per cent increase, or three per cent, which would mean dipping into the council's reserves.

Council chairman Andrew Philpott warned that a large percentage rise would look shocking on a council tax bill, even though each percentage increase equates to just 10p.

But council member Marc Bayliss said if people wanted services, they should be prepared to pay for it. He said: "We could even double our precept and it would barely register. We should be making a case through the media to say, forget the percentage increases, this is what you would get for a certain amount of money.

"I could defend to any parishioner or journalist a 70p a year increase," he said.