Council pledges cleaner estates with series of improvements on the ground
Residents will soon see mechanical sweepers out and about on estates to help improve the look and feel of outdoor areas, as part of a series of changes the Council is making to how estates are cleaned in order to raise cleanliness levels and create a more pleasant environment for everyone.
Estates will keep dedicated cleaners and internal cleaning arrangements will remain the same for now. However, estate cleaners will be supported by vehicles that remove litter and dirt from roads and paths, as well as specialist crews who are able to deal with problem issues, such as graffiti, fly-tipping and the clearance of bulky waste. Smaller blocks will continue to receive daily visits from a mobile cleaning team as well as support from additional tipper vehicles and staff.
This new, integrated estates and street service will begin from Monday, 15 August, and as well as being a more effective service, it will allow the Council to respond more quickly to cleaning issues that need addressing. It will also reduce the amount of time estate cleaners need to spend cleaning outdoors and increase the time available to clean inside blocks.
As part of these new plans, the borough has been divided into four neighbourhood areas; staff and vehicles have been allocated equally to each area to ensure there are enough resources available to keep them clean. In addition, greater cover will be put in place to ensure services are delivered during sickness or unexpected staff absence.
Estate residents may have already noticed cleaning improvements on estates in recent weeks with more regular and responsive clearing of dumped items such as furniture that had not been organised for collection through the bulky waste service.
Hackney is well-known for having clean streets and we want to bring our estates up to the same standard. We’ve begun to make some key changes to tackling the long-standing issue of fly-tipping, which we know has been a problem on estates for years. This next phase of work will see us introduce specific measures to deal with problems that residents have asked us to prioritise, particularly around the frequency, completeness and the standard of the services delivered.
I’m very confident that the new arrangements will bring about a significant improvement and this next phase of work will see us target litter and increase estate hygiene using both well-established vehicle methods and smarter allocation of resource.”
The operational changes will be supported by enforcement action to deal with unregulated waste issues, fly-tipping, abandoned drugs paraphernalia, dog fouling and any other waste-related ASB issues that currently impact on the environmental quality of the estates. Action will be taken to ensure that problem locations are monitored, offenders identified and that action is taken against them. Residents on estates are encouraged to report issues and will receive feedback on the action taken and the results of this.
A review of how internal areas of estates will take place in the future, details of which will be made available once the review is complete and residents’ views have been taken into account.
To report fly-tipping on your estate, call: 020 8356 4504; or email: enforcementsupport@hackney.gov.uk
The Council offers free collections for large items like mattresses, fridges and furniture. We offer four free collections a year of up to five items per collection to all households. Book online at: www.hackney.gov.uk/bulkywaste or call: 020 8356 6688. We will usually collect it within 48 hours.