Conwy council has a black hole in its budget to the tune of £200,000 after Kingdom Services pulled out of the county.

In 2012 the controversial firm had been tasked with enforcing litter rules for the council.

Staff from the company had the power to  hand out fines to litter bugs and people walking dogs where they were not allowed to do so.

Concern had been raised about the number of fines it handed out and where staff from the company focused their attentions, with rural councillors saying the rules were rarely enforced in their wards.

Last summer the firm pulled out of the county after it decided not to renew its contract with the council.

Since then environmental enforcement has been carried out by the council as it looks to find a suitable replacement for Kingdom.

But the council has now got to make up £200,000 that it expected to make from fines issued by Kingdom during the 2018/19 financial year.

The council’s Regulatory and Housing Services had budgeted an income of £200,000 for the next financial year.

Without that income though the department responsible for environmental enforcement is now expected to have an overspend of £170,000 as a result.

Not only has the council lost out on the regular income of handing out fines, a planned increase in the level of fine handed out cannot now go ahead without having enforcement in place.

A report to councillors on the finance scrutiny committee said: “In 2012/13 Regulatory and Housing Services employed an external contractor to carry out environmental enforcement by the issuing of Fixed Penalty Notices in relation to littering, dog fouling and breaches of Dog Control Orders. The relationship between Conwy Council and the contractor continued until August 2018 when the contractor chose not to renew its contract with the authority. During the intervening years the enforcement activity had created an income for the service to the extent that a net budget had been budgeted for 2018/19 of £200k which included an initiative to increase the amount of the Fixed Penalty. Following the cessation of enforcement this income will not be collected and represents a risk to the service.”