Agenda item

The Public Open Space Manager will give a presentation to the Committee on Street Cleaning in King’s Lynn.

Minutes:

The Public Open Space informed the Committee that under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) 1990 and the Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse, the Borough Council are obliged to maintain a level of cleanliness across all public areas within the Borough.

 

An example of that was that all ‘A’ zones (town centres, shopping centres) were required to be litter picked and/or swept by 10.00 hours each day.

 

The outer ‘A’ zone which the Council voluntarily extended some 5 years ago to include the main routes into the town centre were cleared by 11.00 hours.

 

It was explained that street cleansing covered a wide range of services, duties and responsibilities, which included:  litter picking, litter bins and dog waste bins, street sweeping (urban and rural), fly tipping, graffiti and gum removal.

 

The Public Open Space Manager advised that the Council did not clear fly tipping from private land.

 

In response to a query regarding whether the Council published a schedule of sweeping, the Public Open Space Manager explained that the Council used to publish this, but the schedule often changed.  It was advised that you could request for a street to be cleaned on the Council’s website, and a schedule could be sent.

 

Councillor Mrs Wilkinson referred to fly tipping on Freebridge land, and asked how it was reported.  The Public Open Space Manager advised that team leaders were expected to report any fly tipping to Freebridge if it was on their land.  However he did not know what their standards were for removing any fly tipping.

 

Both Councillors Bambridge and the Chairman thanked the Clean-Up Team for an excellent service.

 

Councillor Joyce agreed that the Clean-Up Team was very good.  He stated that he had raised an issue in relation to street cleaning in that the Team were expected to pick litter on public land.  However their task was made more difficult because of growth on pavements.  He asked that as some of the team was trained in the usage of chemicals used in weed control why they were not asked to control weeds on the highway (usually pavements), and make the litter pickers job a bit easier. 

 

Councillor Joyce added that he did understand that weed control was the responsibility of Norfolk County Council, but they were not taking those responsibilities seriously.  Rather than pay someone on a quad bike to spray the growth once a year and he had been informed that he was told not to leave the quad bike for any reason which would explain why the work was often patchy at best, NCC could be asked to employ the Council’s team to carry out the same work. 

 

Councillor Joyce further added that the problem persisted mainly in estates, because usually the mechanical brush clears the weeds before they became a major problem on the roads where cars were not parked, but it was unable to do anything where cars were parked.  If there was a need for extra costings to improve the performance then that would need to be dealt with.

 

The Operations Manager explained that he had attended a Norfolk-wide Streetscenes meeting the day before and South Norfolk also raised the same issue regarding NCC’s approach to weed control on the highways and footways.  It was suggested that the Borough Council could be employed to carry out this role, which Norfolk County Council agreed to look into.

 

Councillor McGuinness raised an issue with regards to the lack of cleaning at South Lynn, and the Public Open Space Manager agreed to look into the issue and to get a team back there.

 

In response to a comment from Councillor Rochford regarding fly-tipping, the Public Open Space Manager explained that if fly-tipping took place on private land, then it would be Planning Enforcement or Community Safety Neighbourhood Nuisance (CSNN) who would need to deal with the issue.

 

The Chairman thanked the Operations Manager and Public Open Space Manager for attending the meeting.