East Belfast councillors are calling for increased regulations regarding pop-up clothing banks as it is feared not all of them are legitimate.
A number of metal clothing bank bins have been installed across East Belfast over the past few years which encourage residents to drop off clothes for a variety of different charities.
While some of these clothing banks have been legitimately installed by registered charities, there are concerns that some in the area have not been.
Speaking to Belfast Live, DUP councillors George Dorrian and David Brooks said they would be putting a motion forward to Belfast City Council calling for increased regulations around the installing of these clothing banks in order to ensure they come from actual charities.
Councillor Dorrian said: "Over the past few months concerns have been raised to us about the clothing banks that have popped up all over East Belfast.
"While some are from legitimate charities that do very good work in our communities, there are fears that some of them may not be.
"There seems to be no regulations regarding the installation of these clothing banks with them appearing seemingly at random without having to go through the proper processes.
"If someone was wanting to put up a sign outside of their shop they would need to apply for planning permission and that should be no different for these clothing banks."
Councillor David Brooks echoed these concerns and said the clothing banks were also attracting fly-tipping to their sites.
He said: "The clothing banks have had the unwanted side-effect of attracting fly-tipping to their sites, which can lead to a wider problem by bringing pests to the area.
"This could be mitigated if we were aware of who put the clothing bins at a site and how they were managing them.
"At the moment it seems that these can be put up anywhere, regardless of who owns the land and it is important that there is more oversight regarding these."
The motion going before Belfast City Council at a meeting of the Full Council on Tuesday, February 1, states: "That this council will introduce appropriate regulations to prohibit the siting of unauthorised ‘clothing banks’ on it’s land, and works with other public landowners to present a united approach.
"Registered charities operate professional collection and retail operations, incurring significant costs. Their profits go on to support many worthy causes. In contrast many ‘clothing banks’ appear overnight, with no permission and with minimal signage. This is unfair and many worthy causes lose out as a result.
"If the operator is legitimate they will have no difficulty in properly registering their collection banks in a managed site. Thus a level playing field is created."
