Greenwich borough residents are being asked if they would volunteer to help clean their street as part of a consultation into cuts to the service.
Earlier this year, the cash-strapped council said it wanted to cut 22 jobs and save £1.2 million by cutting street cleaning to as little as once a month in some areas.
At present all streets are supposed to be cleaned weekly – although councillors were told in January that the target was regularly missed – with town centres swept more often.
Now residents are being asked if they agree that “the council should clean streets according to how quickly an area gets littered or dirty” – and they are also being asked if they would like to help out.
They are also being asked if they would like to join “a scheme called Environment Champions which supports volunteers who want to help keep their neighbourhoods clean and tidy”, and how many hours a week they would be able to contribute.
Environment champions are given a litter-picking kit and asked to be “the council’s eyes and ears” in their neighbourhood.
The council’s proposed changes to street cleaning effectively reverse its last set of changes, when the old Cleansweep service was scrapped in 2016. Then individual sweepers with barrows were replaced with larger teams covering wider areas.
But in a report published earlier this month, the council admitted it had become hard to track how well staff were working, while it was it had become difficult to cover weekends and public holidays.
Now the system will return to using individual sweepers with barrows on a regular beat, with four supervisors managing their performance across eight different areas. Staff would be contracted to work weekends.
A new seasonal team would cover jobs such as autumn leaf cleaning, jet-washing town centres and cleaning the verges on the A2 and A102.
The consultation also asks whether the council should stop using glyphosate on weeds. The chemical has been linked with cancer and activists say it is bad for the environment.
Comments so far on the consultation show unimpressed many residents are with the current state of the borough’s streets – with many complaining about refuse collectors leaving streets strewn with rubbish or street cleaners not finishing the job. One respondent simply called the state of the borough “disgusting at the moment, it is becoming dangerous to walk down some roads because of all the litter and rubbish on the pavements”.
“Something being done about the bin men leaving rubbish everywhere post-collection would make a huge difference,” one said.
“I live on a road adjacent to Christchurch Way and it is one of the most disgusting roads I have to walk down,” an east Greenwich resident said. “It is covered in dog fouling, fly tipping and general litter. I have noted that usually if I report anything via Fix My Street, there is no report or acknowledgement.”
One near neighbour said “the area around the BP garage in Greenwich is a disgrace” and claimed that a street cleaner abused residents who complained.
“I regularly pass through Vanbrugh Hill [in Blackheath], it’s an extremely steep hill and this time of the year it’s covered in dead leaves,” another said. “In past years I’ve slipped and fallen and badly injured myself, I did report it at the time to the council as I worried the same may happen to others but years on and nothing has changed. This road alone is too much for even a handful of volunteers!”
“I don’t think I have seen any road cleaners in Alliance Road [in Plumstead] for over a year,” one resident reported.
“I live on Sandy Hill Road [in Woolwich] and it’s always gross,” said another. “I regularly see dead rats on the street. I’ve reported this so many times but nothing has been done.”
Other residents were unhappy about the request for volunteers, although some described how they did help pick up litter in their streets.
“Supporting volunteers seems to me to be a way to pass responsibility to residents instead of actually doing it yourselves,” one said. “We pay council tax.”
The consultation can be filled in at keepinggreenwichcleanandtidy.commonplace.is until December 8, while public events are taking place in Plumstead, Woolwich, Thamesmead and Eltham until Saturday.
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