HAVING to pay nearly £400 for dropping a cigarette may seem disproportionate to the offence but there is a point to it.

The woman who did this in a Bolton town centre street not only made no attempt to pick it up but refused to pay an on-the-spot £75 fine. When she failed to turn up in court, a fine was imposed which, along with other costs, led to her owing £370.

Cllr Nick Peel, Bolton’s cabinet member for environmental services, commented: “It is almost as if people refuse to accept that it is an offence”. And I think he’s hit the nail right on the head here.

Simply dropping a cigarette butt - or a piece of chewing gum, a sweet wrapper or even an empty crisp packet – may not seem the worst crime in the world, and it isn’t.

But the cumulative effect of many people discarding unwanted rubbish simply by flinging it on the ground leads to rubbish-strewn streets and, very soon, a feeling of community decay.

I’ve no doubt we’ve all tutted over the Bolton News’ pictures of mountains of rubbish, like building materials and old sofas, just dumped on spare land or in a back street around the borough. The blight is obvious to see and, because of its scale, totally unacceptable.

Yet, narrow that right down to someone chucking a cigarette butt or bit of paper on the ground and we’re suddenly talking about “human rights” and an overbearing state trying to control our every movement.

The clue is in the name with enforcement officers: they’re there to ensure local laws are upheld. They’re not doing it for fun, and their job description isn’t a joke. They are trying to ensure that our streets don’t get clogged with rubbish, that we don’t encourage vermin because of this, and that we can still retain some pride in how our town looks.

I fully realise that many smokers believe that they as a group are being clobbered again by authority. Certainly not all because there are plenty of reasonable, law-abiding citizens around who happen to smoke.

But putting our litter, however small, in the many bins around the town centre and elsewhere, and maintaining civic pride in keeping our streets clean is not a big ask. Let just put our litter where it belongs, in bins, and consign fines and court appearances like this to history.

Lead pic – Angela Kelly: Don’t bother looking like a fantasy woman just ditch the corsets

THE new Disney film of Cinderella looks set not only to be a blockbuster but to herald the return of corsets – and that’s bad news.

Actress Lily James has an impossibly tiny waist in all the publicity pictures of her as the young woman making the transition from kitchen to palace with the help of the shoe industry.

Cinderella is one of our favourite fairy tales, and I’m sure the new Disney film also starring Cate Blanchett will be an absolute cracker and delight fans of all ages. But, really, who wants to be strapped into a torturous piece of underwear that hardly allows for breath let alone movement?

We’ve just got past the burlesque trend involving them when suddenly we’re being plunged into Victorian corsets again. Only men would imagine that women actually like wearing them.

So, unless you’ve got your own fairy godmother who can magic you into this terrifying undergarment with no ill effects, please give it a miss. Just consign corsets to fantasy and go with Nature.