Agenda item

Discussion paper of the Environmental Maintenance Manager

The Environmental Maintenance Manager introduced the paper as circulated with the agenda, which detailed the results of the survey used to measure the level of satisfaction with Town Centre cleansing operations by members of the public.  The survey, by way of a questionnaire was carried out in the Regent and Beechwood Arcades over a 4 day period. 

The results were shown in appendices 1 to 5 and generally were good, however, a number of residents responses were rather influenced by the change to the refuse collections and charging for garden waste collections, etc and scores were lower, presumably as they were unhappy with other aspects of the council. 

The service was currently being reviewed in an effort to identify improvements and ultimately deliver a more efficient and effective service. 

The Environmental Maintenance Manager and the Director of Operations gave the following responses to questions from members of the committee;

• ‘crews bar 61’ within the report referred to a crew consisting of two men with a vehicle undertaking other duties. 
• The town centre was cleaned everyday, up to 3 times a day, with the most significant effort being put into the early morning clean.  Unfortunately officers were unable to prevent littering between visits, though the future aim was to dovetail enforcement with operations to change the behaviour of those that litter. 
• The Councils responsibility for clearing litter from along the A40 ended just before the M5 junction, but this area was often addressed by the County Council. 
• The annual steam-clean of certain areas equated to a significant spend for the service and chewing gum was a major issue for the council, as it was for many authorities across the country.  The Tidy Britain group were lobbying hard to get manufacturers of chewing gum to pay a levy towards the clear up operations or develop a non-stick gum.  
• Officers worked with residents to clear cars in an area in order to undertake a complete deep clean and also tried to work with GCC to clear gullies. It took an hour in total and residents would be impressed by the results. 
• The bi-annual Place Survey, on which the council used to rely to measure public opinion of services such as street cleansing had now ceased.  There was no doubt an issue when undertaking a survey in the town centre that people would refer to the town centre rather than the street where they lived.  Locations outside the town centre could be considered in future.
• The questionnaire was attached to over 800 individuals in a mail-out by the Chamber of Commerce and only 2 responses were received.
• There was a dedicated rapid response team for the town centre, though, all street cleansing teams had mobile communications and could address issues during working hours.  Members needed to consider that street cleansing was very objective. 
• Removal of weeds from gullies was the responsibility of Gloucestershire Highways, however, two sprays a year were included in the councils service level agreement.  A contact herbicide spray was used in around April and again in September, but this would only kill what it touched and would not affect anything that was yet to germinate.  When to carry out such services was always a dilemma and in an ideal world, the Council would like to undertake four sprays a year, but Gloucestershire Highways would not fund any more than two.
• Chewing gum boards had been considered in the past, but this was certainly something that could be trialled in the high street for a nominal sum. 
• There were no notices prohibiting the feeding of birds but this was discouraged and whilst action could be taken against individuals, the council could attract negative press for taking such action. 
• There were informal arrangements already in existence by way of residents who reported issues in their neighbourhood.  There were also a range of communication channels for reporting issues (website, email, phone, etc).  The service could consider more formal arrangements with individuals within a neighbourhood. 
• The service could purchase a machine to remove chewing gum, but this would be very costly and require manpower.  Multi-functional machinery was often purchased that met many needs. 
• There was a voluntary code of practice for Cheltenham businesses to sign up to.  One of the more successful was ‘food on the go’ which saw, for example, Burger King, providing and maintaining a litter bin.
• The service consisted of 20 staff in total, however, unfortunately there were currently 4 vacancies being filled by agency staff. 
• When the cleansing service moved from a regular to a responsive service the Director of Operations understood that the information on the website had been changed.  He apologised that this was not the case and would ensure the issue was rectified as soon as possible.
• The survey had been more labour intensive than the Place Survey but it had been a worthwhile exercise as it had highlighted certain issues and would aid the current review of the service.
• Details of the operational service changes as a result of the review would be reported to the committee in May 2012.                                                                                                                                                                                      

The Chair accepted that the service was no longer in a position to offer regular cleansing teams but felt that when they did respond to issues, the results were of high standard.