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New teams to tackle blight in Liverpool
4 new teams to tackle fly tipping and
dumping are hitting the streets of Liverpool as part of a ₤1 million investment
in tackling environmental crime.
The 12 environmental staff will be working 7 days a week investigating,
gathering evidence and removing flytipped rubbish in passageways, clearing
unmanaged land and tackling blight in the worst areas of the City.
They are initially focusing on parts of Kensington in a project dubbed:- 'Operation
Cleansweep', where they have cleared more than 90 tonnes of waste over the
last 3 weeks.
The new teams will be cleaning alleyways 3 times a week, supported by pest
control staff who are putting down bait in alleys and sewers to kill rodents.
The work is being followed up with education and enforcement activity to support
residents to keep areas clean.
It is one of a series of measures being introduced following a pledge by Mayor
Joe Anderson to tackle the issue of environmental crime and those responsible.
Funding is coming from efficiency savings made by creating a new arms length
company to operate refuse collection and street cleansing, Liverpool Street
Scene Services Limited.
Councillor Steve Munby, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods said:- "We have
a particular problem in some areas of Liverpool with dumping, blighting
particular neighbourhoods and causing misery for law abiding residents.
We know that dumped waste simply attracts more dumped waste, so by removing it
and bringing our alleyways up to standard, we are doing our very best to show we
care for the area to inject pride back in to neighbourhoods and educate people
who are not presenting rubbish correctly.
Everyone knows we have got far less money than we used to, but by no longer
paying a private company to deliver street cleansing and refuse collection, we
have made savings which we are re-investing.
The new teams effectively double the number of staff tackling flytipping, and
will be able to respond at relatively short notice to problems that residents
report to us. But we're not letting people who dump off the hook and where we
are given solid evidence of people dumping irresponsibly, we will take action.
We have adopted a zero tolerance approach to litter and are punishing those who
treat our streets as a dumping ground. We're doing our bit to keep the streets
tidy, and by introducing a further 200 larger litter bins across Liverpool and
piloting an extension of street cleansing hours in the City Centre. As part of
that we expect people to help us keep the City tidy as well."
Work is also underway to clean and repair four foot alleyways to improve the
storage of waste as well as introducing larger recycling sacks, expanding weekly
recycling services for City Centre apartment blocks and piloting weekly
recycling.
Since March, the Council has been working with Kingdom to crackdown on people
dropping litter and so far they have issued around 9,000 fixed penalty notices;
with the Council's share of the income reinvested in tackling litter, graffiti
and fly posting.
Street cleaning currently costs Liverpool Council Tax Payers, ₤8 million per year,
and in the 2016/2017 Tax Year more than 6,500 tonnes of waste was collected from street
cleansing rounds.
Earlier this year, 2 serial fly tippers who were caught dumping tonnes of
illegal trade waste, including asbestos, yards from a children's dance school
were jailed, following a surveillance operation by the Council and Merseyside
Police.
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