She believes this will have a huge impact on the number of trolleys abandoned around Bathurst and, in the end, will prove cheaper for the supermarkets who are responsible for collecting them.

Mrs Piddington recalled how, on Thursday, she drove over the low level bridge in George Street, followed the river bank around to the highway and then up Bentinck Street to the BP service station.

“Between the bridge and Mitre 10 entrance, I counted seven shopping trolleys on the side of the road,” she said.

“It is time that the council and the shopping centres got together to solve this problem.”

Mrs Piddington said she noticed that not one of the trolleys came from Aldi, which has a $2 return policy on its trolleys.

She said introducing such a policy encouraged people to return their trolleys to get their money back.

She said even if they don’t bother to return them, others do in order to collect the cash. 

However, Mrs Piddington said the most successful measure would be to fit trolley locks so they can’t leave the store. 

She said she visited a supermarket in London where these measures were used. When she went to take the trolley out to the car to unpack it, she couldn’t get past the doors. 

Mrs Piddington said she spoke with a former councillor, just before Bathurst City Centre was being built, to see if there was some way council could include a condition regarding trolleys. 

She was told there was nothing they could do.

“This seems ridiculous to me – they put restrictions and conditions on other aspects of a development,” she said.

She has found an ally in Cr Warren Aubin, who is also peeved by the number of shopping trolleys turning up in city streets and down by the river.

He said trolleys have become a blight on the landscape and small business owners have had enough.

Cr Aubin was in favour of trolley locks, saying that although centre managers would have to fork out about $200 to get the locks fitted to each trolley, it would be worth it in the end.