In response to A Shah’s letter (‘Card fine plan’, February 16) it is absolutely not our intention to automatically fine shop owners when fly-posting or fly- stickers are stuck on the front of their shops.

We have been working with shop owners to stop this nuisance from happening, and we ask them to report fly-posting/ stickers to us so we can take action to track down and punish those responsible.

Fly-posting/ stickers on private property is an offence and we will issue fixed penalty notices to any company or individual who does so.

The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 and the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 gives us the powers to take this action.

We’ll also use this to gather intelligence on more serious offences such as prostitution.

With regards to the fun fair which recently carried out an excessive amount of fly-posting on shops in Leytonstone, we have issued the organisers with 43 separate fixed penalty notices, and we will continue to take action against anyone who carried out this sort of anti-social activity.

However, I want to also be clear that it is the responsibility of owners to keep their shop fronts clean, and that includes removing any fly-posting and stickers. Shops covered in fly-posting and stickers cause a real blight on the local environment, and is not something we want our residents to have to look at while shopping on our high streets.

If a business fails to remove fly-posting and stickers from their shopfront in good time then the Council can issue them with a Community Protection Warning which requires them to remove it within seven days. If they fail to do this we can then issue a Community Protection Notice, which means we can remove the fly-posting and recover the costs, and also issue a Fixed Penalty Notice.

We’ve writing to shop owners to remind them of their responsibilities. And what local shop keeper doesn’t want the town centre or high street in which they operate to look the best it can and play a small part in helping that be the case?

Again let me be clear that this is not about penalising our hard working local shop owners, but working collaboratively with them so we can crack down on fly-postings and stickers and keep our high streets looking clean and attractive for everyone.

Cllr Clyde Loakes, deputy leader and cabinet member for the environment at Waltham Forest Council