THE owner of a Worcester pub has been fined £325 – for putting out a recycling bin.

Staff at the Marwood said they were stunned when a police officer issued them with a court summons because their green bin was in the highway, but at the same time several cars were parked on double yellow lines along the same stretch of road at the back of the pub in The Tything.

Ben Coates said he then got an even bigger shock when he received notification he had been fined £325 for the offence.

“I’m running my own pub so I couldn’t take a whole day off to go to court so I pleaded guilty in absence expecting a small fine,” he said.

“Then £325 came through which is ridiculous because the bin is half the size of a car which would have meant a £60 fine, or £30 if I’d paid within two weeks.

“The most annoying thing is that the bin has been in that position for two years.

“The police go past it everyday so if it was so much of an issue why haven’t they said anything before? It was just one particular police officer who got a bee in his bonnet and made a very big issue of it.”

Manager Tracey Tyrls said: “We’re a business. We’re doing a good trade but we don’t need these extra costs, especially in the current climate.”

Mr Coates said the officer had approached him about the bin four times before he issued the court summons in August.

Mr Coates said he had repeatedly told the policeman it was not possible to put the bin in the beer garden for health and safety reasons, and said moving it onto a neighbouring car park was out of the question until recently because the previous owners did not want anything to do with it.

The pub owner said he also pointed out about seven parked cars on the street to the officer.

He said: “If it was such a major problem why not do something about the cars? The police officer’s response was that parking was no longer a police matter which is a bit of a cop out.”

The police were not able to respond by the time your Worcester News went to press.