Fixed penalty notice (FPN)

Authorised Council Officers can issue Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) as an enforcement tool through several legislative acts. 

Havant Borough Council's Prevention and Enforcement Officers may issue fixed penalty notices for the following offences: 

• littering which will include items such as chewing gum, cigarette butts and fast food and other forms of litter such as wrapping
• failing to pick up after your dog or not disposing of the dog litter in the correct way
• a breach of any conditions contained within a Public Space Protection Order
• flyposting
• graffiti.  

Please be advised:

• providing false details or refusing to provide name and address when requested by an authorized officer is an offence and this may lead to you being fined an additional amount or result in direct prosecution
• you can use bins without ashtrays for cigarette disposal, extinguish the cigarette first then place it in the bin
• if there is no bin it doesn’t mean no fine – if a bin is not available take your litter with you
• dropping litter (including cigarette butts) in a stream or a drain is an offence and will result in a Fixed Penalty Notice.
• once bagged dog foul can be placed in a litter bin. 

Paying a Fixed Penalty Notice

You can pay a Fixed Penalty Notice online using our payments system which is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Please select the "Miscellaneous Payments" option from the list of payments available and have your debit or credit card to hand.

Fixed Penalty Notice - FAQs

How much is a Fixed Penalty Notice?

Fixed Penalty Notices issued will cost you a fine of £80.

However, if you do not pay this you could end up in court and be faced with criminal conviction and a larger fine.

Can I appeal a Fixed Penalty Notice?

There are no formal grounds of appeal against a fixed penalty notice.

This is because a Fixed Penalty Notice is an invitation for you to effectively ‘buy off’ your liability to prosecution.

This means that while this is not an admission of guilt, you agree that an offence has been committed and that by paying the sum of money specified no further action will be undertaken by the council.

This method of dealing with offences not only saves the time involved for everyone (including the offender) in prosecuting cases at court, but the cost associated with a Fixed Penalty Notice is likely to be substantially lower than any fine imposed by the courts.

For example, the maximum penalty which can be imposed by the courts for littering is £2,500.

But I don’t agree that I committed the offence for which I have received a Fixed Penalty Notice?

If you do not agree that you committed the offence for which you received the Fixed Penalty Notice then the matter will be dealt with through formal prosecution via the courts.

It will then be up to the court, on receiving evidence, to determine whether or not an offence was committed and therefore whether or not any penalty should be imposed.

Effectively this means that the formal court route becomes the mechanism for those wishing to appeal a Fixed Penalty Notice.

It should be noted that the financial penalty imposed by the courts can be significantly more than that which is imposed through a Fixed Penalty Notice.

Why should I pay a Fixed Penalty Notice when there were no litter or dog bins nearby at the time?

Where bins are not available then it is up to everyone to act responsibly and make arrangements to either take their litter home or carry it until a litter bin is available.

Smokers (who are well aware that their habit means that they will be faced with disposing of their cigarette waste) can carry portable ‘stubby pouches’ with them or create their own by placing some soil or sand in a small tin.

Cigarette butts once extinguished can be put in any litter bin. Dog poo, once bagged, can be placed in any litter bin in the borough.

I received a Fixed Penalty Notice for dropping a cigarette butt, surely that can’t be considered littering?

Litter includes not only cigarette butts but also chewing gum. In many ways these items are more of a nuisance and more expensive to clean up than other items of rubbish.

Cigarette butts can take up to 12 years to degrade.