Brent Council, as is every council, is facing financial difficulty and we no longer have the extensive resources available to us that we used to. When Brent Council entered into a new waste and street cleansing contract in 2014, we changed the way in which streets were swept. In order to manage costs effectively, it was agreed that streets (other than high streets) would be swept when required, rather than once a week. The sweepers that we do have each manage a particular area. They have knowledge of their areas, and therefore will be able to ascertain how frequently a road will need to be swept. I am sure you can understand the need for efficiency in not sending a sweeper to a side road every week where no litter accumulates.
That said, we do expect our sweepers to be pro-active and to visit those roads where there are known levels of accumulation of litter.
We are trying to work on different campaigns to encourage people to not drop litter and dump waste, in the first place. The Cleaner Brent app also assists us as a council in identifying areas where work is needed. To give you some context; four years ago, as a service, we had 21 ward officers, who each took responsibility for managing and preventing issues in each ward. Today we have just two officers to cover the entire borough.
This is why we need to work in partnership with local residents and we encourage residents to use the reporting app.
We are also working on improved management of the data that we receive as a result of these reports to assist us in targeting our resources in specific areas of the borough.
BRENT CLEANER APP
The Cleaner Brent app makes it easy to report litter, illegal rubbish dumping, and other problems in streets, parks and cemeteries to us using your smartphone.
You will receive confirmation that the event has been reported and confirmation when the report is closed.
You may receive an email advising that your report has been closed, but the rubbish is still there. This normally means that the waste you reported is on private land.
This waste will not be cleared automatically by our contractor. Instead, the details will be passed to our waste enforcement team to investigate. It is the responsibility of the land owner to clear waste in these instances. More