All adopted highways (pavements and roads) are cleansed every five weeks. Some areas around schools, shops and busy areas, and certain parks, council owned car parks and certain open spaces will be cleansed more often.
The council does not cleanse land belonging to private individuals, unadopted highways, housing associations or businesses. If you think there are cleansing issues on their land you should contact the organisations directly.
When we cleanse an area we use a combination of litter picking, manual sweeping and mechanical sweeping depending on the needs of the area.
We split our cleansing schedules into five weeks. This means that every area will be visited at least once during this time. Some locations are visited more frequently so that they receive fortnightly, weekly or even daily visits – such as busy shopping areas. As we cleanse the whole of the borough on a scheduled basis, you can only report dangerous litter so that we can remove it quickly.
Please note that our cleansing schedules can be delayed by bad weather such as snow when we suspend cleansing so that our crews can help with gritting and other work.
You can get involved in local clean-up activities, such as the Adopt a Street.
Litter and dog mess bins
We currently have 1660 litter and dog bins across the borough and we in the process of developing a strategy for street bins with the intent of removing a proportion of these to focus council resources to both emptying and maintaining them.
At present we will only consider the installation of a litter bin at a new location if it has changed significantly such as a new public development. Where there is a change of use, the cleansing team will assess whether or not this warrants the installation of a new litter bin or the relocation of an existing one. Please be aware that the siting of any litter bin will be subject to the following:
- That is it well used at the location
- Not subject to or likely to be subject to vandalism
- Will not cause a nuisance to pedestrians or properties nearby
We would encourage all residents and people in the borough to be responsible and take their rubbish home, if there is no litter bin or a litter bin is full, to dispose of it in their own bin at home.
Did you know that you can put bagged dog mess in a dog or litter bin, or take it home and put in your domestic grey wheelie bin? Just make sure that it is double wrapped and tied securely.
You can let us know about the following issues on our report it page:
- Dangerous litter
- Dog mess
- Dead animals
- Flytipping
- Flyposting
- Graffiti
- Litter bins - full or damaged
- Dog bins - full or damaged
- Blocked drains