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BOROUGH councillors are backing a campaign to make the Test Valley a plastic bag free zone.

The authority has agreed to support the Better Bags for Romsey campaign and voted for officers to contact all large supermarket chain bosses and to urge them to consider introducing alternatives to plastic carrier bags in stores across the borough.

Better Bags for Romsey's spokesperson Kate Allen outlined the aims of the campaign group to the last full council meeting and highlighted some of the environmental problems associated with discarded plastic materials.

Asking the council to support the group's bid to get chain store bosses to agree to offer customers reusable alternatives to plastic bags, Mrs Allen said: "We believe that the local managers of these national chains tend to take refuge in so-called head office policies."

Cabinet member Caroline Nokes put a motion before the council asking for members to support the Better Bags for Romsey campaign and she praised the work the group had already done.

Cllr Nokes said that members only had to visit landfill sites to see for themselves the plastic bag problem. She said plastic bags were strewn up against fencing around the sites.

Andover Harroway's Carl Borg-Neal highlighted the dangers discarded plastic bags posed to wildlife. He said: "I came across a crisp bag with a bird in it when I was walking."

Romsey's mayor Mark Cooper said that whilst he was walking along a roadside verge near Stockbridge recently there were "crunching" sounds coming from beneath his feet due to layers of litter, which included plastic bags.

North Baddesley member Steve Cosier called on the government to tackle the "immoral amount of profit supermarkets make" to force chain stores to change their habits.

"As it stands, the voluntary agreement brokered by the government to reduce the use of plastic bags by 25 per cent is behind target. We should be following our French neighbours across the channel where the government will impose an outright ban on using plastic bags in 2010.

"Though this motion addresses the crucial concerns of the Better Bags for Romsey campaign, which I totally support, it fails to tackle the growing borough-wide problem facing us today.

"I understand fully the need to localise this issue but we have a duty to the other 100,000 or so residents living in Test Valley," said Cllr Cosier.

After the meeting, Margaret Hobbs from the Better Bags for Romsey campaign added: "This support from TVBC is so encouraging. We have just heard that both Romsey Town Council and the Co-operative membership community fund scheme have agreed to help with funding awards. These will go towards the group's fund for buying new Better Bags for Romsey, which will be distributed free through primary schools and other community groups."

The Better Bags for Romsey campaign group is obtaining organic cotton bags from a Fairtrade project in India and the first are due to arrive in Britain in time for the launch in June.

8:06am Friday 16th May 2008

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