It was a pleasure to join local residents to do a community litter pick in Beddington Park yesterday.
I was joined by Councillor Jed Dwight and Councillor Neil Garratt, and I want to thank local residents like Jackie Moore for organising it.
Seeing people come out and support efforts to clean up our parks was fantastic, but of course, it is a shame that it has to come to this.
Lockdown has meant our parks have been even more popular than usual, and sadly some do not leave things as they would like to find them. But as well as encouraging people to take their litter home, Sutton Council and their contractors must be held to account and keep our parks to the standard that residents' expect.
In response to queries raised after a particularly bad weekend of litter, especially in Beddington Park, I received the below information from the Parks team at the Council:
There was an issue with litter collection last weekend as Idverde could not get enough staff to work overtime and as a result they provided a very poor service. Unfortunately this coincided with an exceptionally busy weekend in the park and I have seen numerous photos of bins overflowing and litter on the ground. I have been in discussion with Idverde's senior managers about the issues and about the need for a reliable and robust litter collection service going forward.
Idverde usually has teams out on the weekend, but the contract specification is based on the service provided when the service was in house, so the weekend cover is much reduced compared to Monday to Friday. The contractor has until noon on Monday to bring the high quality parks such as Beddington Park back to standard after the weekend and until 6pm on Monday for all other parks and open spaces. Therefore visitors in the morning will see rubbish on Monday if it has been busy on Sat/Sun. The same rule applies on week days i.e the teams have until noon, or 6pm the following day, to clean them.
It is worth pointing out too that the parks have been exceptionally busy this year and the contract simply wasn't written with this level of use in mind. I appreciate that visitors expect the parks to be clean and pleasant green spaces and that is what we aim to deliver, but both the Council and the contract have the same level of resources to deploy as usual, in fact less, as some staff are still shielding.
To tackle the litter issues we are taking the following steps:
- I have written to Idverde to complain about the lack of service provided last weekend ( 8/9th August) and to ask for a plan to avoid future issues. They are working on a proposal and we are continuing to discuss details of what is required. Idverde has already agreed to increase weekend staffing until the end of the summer specifically to cover the litter rounds..
- At Beddington Park where there has been the most concern, we had already deployed large wire baskets and we will install a further 6 litter bins around the playground area as soon as the supplier can deliver them. I don't have a budget available to install bins in other locations.
- We are offering litter pickers, gloves and sacks for any community group or volunteer willing to assist with keeping the parks tidy. Idverde will collect any sacks filled with litter.
- We are letting a contract for Environmental Enforcement which will be in place before the start of the busy season in 2021. This will include options for issuing fines to visitors who drop litter.
- We are working with Waste and Street Cleansing colleagues on a borough-wide litter and litter bin project to ensure litter bins are in the right place, are the right size and are the right type. We also plan to deliver a litter campaign to change visitors behaviour and to establish how we can recycle more of the waste collected. The is almost ready to deploy and will focus on parks initially due to the level of concern at present.
I can only apologise for the lack of service last weekend and assure you we are doing all we can to avoid further issues.
I will be keeping a close eye on the litter situation in our parks to ensure that these measures are working, but also to hold the Council and Idverde to account if more is needed.
If you have concerns about a park, then please get in touch.
