Category Archives: Clean Streets

Clean-up at North Circular Road estate

Posted on March 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

Local residents and North Circular Road users no longer have to pass piles of dumped rubbish at the entrance of the 1000 North Circular Road estate after local Liberal Democrat councillor Alison Hopkins stepped in to demand a clean-up.

The estate, which includes the Big Yellow self-storage unit as well as Staples stationery shop, had generated complaints about the amount of rubbish dumped at the entrance and lying around at the side of roads, and in hedges along the boundary.

After contacting the estate’s Canary Wharf-based managers Alison received assurances that waste has been cleared away and that damaged fences will be repaired. The managers also have plans for improved landscaping at the front of the site.

Councillor Hopkins, who represents the Dollis Hill ward, said:

Thousands of motorists pass this site every day. It had reached the state of being a real eyesore. I am very pleased that we have now seen some action. I will keep a close eye on progress to ensure that the promised landscaping and improvements are delivered.

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Lib Dem budget for Brent listens to residents

Posted on February 26, 2013 | Leave a comment

Brent Liberal Democrats last night set out budget proposals that listen to local residents’ concerns.

In contrast the Labour Leader called for community involvement in the budget but endorsed proposals which maintain controversial cuts to libraries, street cleaning and school crossing patrols.

The Liberal Democrat Alternative 2013/14 Budget

Libraries

Staff remove boxes from Kensal Rise library

Labour’s library closure programme including striping Kensal Rise library of its books and computers in the middle of the night

Labour closed half of Brent’s libraries, broke promises to work with volunteer library campaigners, engineered the transfer of Cricklewood  and Kensal Rise libraries to All Souls College, sold off Tokyngton library and blocked the return of library services to Barham Park and Preston

Liberal Democrats will invest an additional £400,000 per year to support library volunteers across the borough, including access to professional support, catalogues etc. and to finance plans to re-open closed libraries

Parking

Labour has hiked parking charges – twice in four months for parking permit holders – introduced parking meters in roads where they didn’t previously operate and is hitting older and poorer residents without internet access especially hard with punitive parking fees.

Liberal Democrats will freeze April’s planned parking charge increases, reverse January’s parking permit increase and keep daily visitor parking permits at £1.

We will start a wide-range review of parking tariffs and penalty charges in Brent to ensure they meet the needs of residents and businesses in Brent – ending the current policies which discourage people from shopping locally.

Labour’s proposal for a 20p rate for the first 15 minutes at parking meters is a welcome acknowledgement of the problems caused by their parking policies, but does nothing to help parking permit holders.

Highways repairs

Labour has failed to maintain our roads and (especially) our pavements to the standards that local residents expect.

Liberal Democrats will invest an extra £500,000 over and above the administration’s budget proposals to mend potholes and resurface pavements, keeping pedestrians safer and reducing damage to Brent residents’ cars.
 
Street cleaning

Big pile of bags of rubbish on the pavement

Labour’s cuts to street cleaning mean that rubbish is piling up on our streets

Labour has cut street sweeping and graffiti removal, leaving Brent’s streets dirtier than ever and local people fed up with the build-up of rubbish on their streets.

Liberal Democrats will invest £250,000 to clear the backlog of Labour’s rubbish and pilot more effective ways of working.

CCTV

Labour has failed to provide funding for the renewal and extension of Brent’s CCTV system. Liberal Democrats will restart the CCTV installation programme for local High Streets and hotspots (costing £135,000).

Festivals

Labour removed the Navratri grant and abolished the budget for Christmas, Eid, St Patrick’s and other local cultural festivals and celebrations.

Liberal Democrats will reinstate £115,000 funding for festivals which bring the community together.

Tree planting

Liberal Democrats will invest in a £50,000 tree planting programme, making our streets and public places greener and healthier.

School Crossing Patrols

Labour has let down parents and children by stealthily removing school crossing patrols from our schools.

Liberal Democrats will reverse Labour’s cuts and recruit new school crossing patrols when vacancies occur at an annual cost of £60,000.

Total additional spending: £1,797,000 (£862,000 recurrent, £935,000 one-off) 

The Liberal Democrat budget proposals are funded by:

Reduction in size of Corporate Management Team
The move into the Civic Centre, reduction in the overall size of the council and changes in role means that the Corporate Management Team can be slimmed down, saving £518,000.

Restructure of Customer and Community Engagement Directorate
Savings from ward working admin (while maintaining the project budget), communications, the festivals unit and mayoral support will save £344,000.

To fund one-off expenditure the Lib Dems will reduce the size of three very large uncommitted earmarked reserves by £935,000 (transformation reserve: £450,000, redundancy and restructuring reserve: £420,000, remuneration strategy reserve: £65,000). This will leave £4.25m in these reserves plus over £12m in the general reserve to cover contingencies and risks.

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Posted in Clean Streets, Environment, Finance, Libraries

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Brent rubbish piles up in Labour’s dirty streets

Posted on January 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

Labour councillors running Brent Council have been accused of shameful neglect by Liberal Democrat Councillor Paul Lorber after they allowed “appalling dumps” to pile up in Brenthurst Road, Willesden.

Liberal Democrat councillor Paul Lorber in front of a big pile of rubbish by a garage in Brenthurst Road

The rubbish has clearly been piling up for weeks and according to Councillor Lorber is a health hazard and an eyesore.

The Liberal Democrats highlight Labour’s decision to reduce refuse collections and sweeps the streets less often as responsible for the increasing mess in Brenthurst Road and across Brent.

Councillor Lorber said:

Local people should not have to live with this kind of rubbish on their doorstep. The Council should take immediate action to clear up the mess and deal with the dumpers. Labour councillors should rethink their failing street cleansing policies.

Liberal Democrat councillor Paul Lorber in front of a big pile of rubbish in Brenthurst Road

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Brent Council comes clean and admits streets are getting dirtier

Posted on December 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

Brent Council has been forced to admit that Labour’s reforms to street-cleaning and waste collection in Brent have failed, and that local streets are dirtier than ever.

Councillor Alison Hopkins and Brent Liberal Democrats are campaigning to clean up Labour’s dirty streets


In a report to the One Council Overview and Scrutiny committee, to be considered by councillors next Wednesday (5 December), council officials admit:

  • “As part of the review, the street cleansing contract cost was reduced by £2m in October 2011. Cleansing arrangements are now much reduced.” (para. 3.2)
  • “There has been an increase in reported fly-tipping this year. The three main contributing factors are likely to be:
    • The council’s new household waste collection arrangements that restrict the volume of waste that is collected. This has led to residents dumping excess / uncollected waste on footpaths and near litter bins in some areas.
    • Reduced frequency of street cleansing. Small fly-tips are cleared by the regular sweeping operation. A less frequent sweep means items are left for longer and are more likely to be reported.
    • Increased commercial waste disposal charges. This has led to dumping by unscrupulous traders who wish to avoid these charges.” (para. 3.3)

In addition the council is only recycling 45% of the waste it collects compared to its target of 60%, which council officers estimate could cost Brent residents up to £1.4m.

Liberal Democrat councillor Alison Hopkins has been actively campaigning to tackle fly-tipping in Dollis Hill. She helped council officials to identify potential fly-tippers. Commenting on the council’s admission she said:

Liberal Democrat councillors said from the start that Labour’s street cleaning cuts were the wrong thing to do.

The council taxpayer is picking up the bill for extra fly-tipping costs because Brent Council is failing to pick up the rubbish from our streets.

It’s time Labour put right its mistake, before the litter problem in Brent becomes unmanageable.

Alperton councillor Daniel Brown highlighted the current problems with leaf clearance in streets such as Sherrick Green Road, Melrose Avenue and Chichele Road at last week’s full council meeting (Monday 19 November). He asked Labour Executive members to agree it was a mistake to abandon special leaf-fall collections each Autumn.

In response Labour Councillor Jim Moher, lead member for Highways and transportation, suggested that residents should clear up their own leaves. Cllr Brown said:

Residents will not be impressed by the implication that autumn leaf-fall is in some way their responsibility. It should not be too much to ask that the council keeps our pavements clean and safe – but even this simple task appears to be beyond the current Labour administration.

The following day Brent Council posted a statement on its website admitting that the reduced leaf clearance programme means it will take weeks to deal with the fallen leaves.

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Posted in Clean Streets, Environment, Finance, Labour Failure

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Waste authority launches £609,000 raid on Brent council taxpayers

Posted on November 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

Brent taxpayers will be landed with a shocking unexpected bill of £609,000 to bail out the West London Waste Authority, which is dealing with a multi-million hole in its budget.

Liberal Democrats are angry that the scale of the problem – the equivalent of an extra £6 levied on each council tax-paying household – has been kept from councillors. The need for emergency funding to plug the financial black hole was revealed by Councillor Barry Cheese at Monday’s Brent Council meeting, following research by Liberal Democrat councillors.

The looming bill was not mentioned by leading Labour councillors or council officers at the budget and finance scrutiny committee earlier this month, despite the fact that the waste authority agreed to write to the council in July 2012 warning that more money would be needed.

Cllr James Powney, who is a member of the waste authority and therefore shares responsibility for how it is run, also failed to mention that the financial crisis is one of the reasons that local residents have suddenly been hit with charges to dispose of some of their domestic rubbish at Abbey Road re-use and recycling centres.

The charges, which mean that local residents have to pay at least £17.50 to throw away old kitchen units and other DIY waste, are described in official waste authority papers as an “income generation plan” that will help the authority rescue its finances as part of a “recovery plan”.

Cllr Cheese, who raised the issue of charges at last Monday’s council meeting on behalf of local residents said:

“Brent residents have been hit twice over because of the waste authority’s financial mess. Firstly they had to pay to get rid of their DIY waste at the tip and now they are being landed with this massive bill.

 “The absence of a Director of Finance is no excuse for keeping this information from councillors. If Cllr Powney and his fellow waste authority members had kept control of the budget, Brent taxpayers would not be facing this emergency call for cash. I’m angry to think that this money could otherwise have been used to keep libraries open or clear leaves from our streets.”

The West London Waste Authority deals with the disposal of waste collected by Brent Council and from Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow and Richmond upon Thames. Brent Council was already due to pay £1.713m to the waste authority this year. The emergency levy of £609,000 means Brent council taxpayers will contribute £2.322m to the waste authority in 2012/13 compared to £1.427m last year – an increase of 63%.

The additional charges for waste brought to the re-use and recycling centre at Abbey Road areintended to raise £525,000 according to a review of the waste authority budget carried out by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in July 2012.

The addtional charges and were agreed agreed by members of the Waste Authority, including Brent Labour councillor James Powney, on 20 July 2012. On the same day the Waste Authority members instructed the Treasurer to write to borough councils to tell them they might need to pay more money.

On 2 November 2012 James Powney and his Waste Authority colleagues agreed to demand an extra £3.6m from member councils including £609,000 from Brent Council.

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Posted in Clean Streets, Environment, Labour Failure

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Liberal Democrat councillors target fly-tippers

Posted on August 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

Liberal Democrat councillors in Dollis Hill have targeted the fly-tippers who disfigure the streets of Brent, as part of their efforts to clean up their area.

Dollis Hill councillor Alison Hopkins with dumped rubbish

Labour has given up on keeping Brent clean

Once again Brent is becoming known as one of London’s dirtiest boroughs after Labour cut the frequency of street cleaning. As a result street bins are over-flowing and litter is piling up in the streets.

Official council figures show that fly-tipping incidents have rocketed under Labour. The latest figures published by the council show that fly-tipping increased massively between 2010-11 and 2011-12 – reaching a rate of one fly-tip every 90 minutes.

Dollis Hill Liberal Democrat councillor Alison Hopkins said:

We know how much distress dirty streets and fly tipping cause. Javaid Ashraf, Jack Beck and I are working hard to keep Dollis Hill clean.

We report fly tipping and litter on an almost daily basis, and make sure we gather the evidence needed to prosecute wherever we can. Roads bordering on the North Circular are particular hot spots for dumping by builders and gardeners’ waste. We are monitoring those areas daily.

Dollis HIll Liberal Democrat councillor Alison Hopkins with dumped sofa

Liberal Democrat councillor Alison Hopkins and the Dollis Hill Focus team have reported dozens of fly-tips.

Recent work by Lib Dem councillors and council officials has led to the possible identification of persistent fly tippers in Brook Road, Tadworth Road, Gladstone Parade, Oxgate Parade and Kenwyn Drive, with the potential for legal action and even prosecution of the offenders.

Liberal Democrat councillors are pressing the council to revive the Streetwatchers scheme which Labour secretly abolished. The scheme involved local people volunteering time and effort to report issues on the streets of the borough and help keep Brent’s streets clean. The popular scheme was launched in 1999 and ran successfully until it was abandoned by the Labour council in 2011/12.

Councillor Hopkins added:

Increasingly I’m hearing members of the public say how much they hate seeing so much litter and fly-tipping in Dollis Hill. Sadly it shows that Labour has given up on the fight to keep our streets clean and pleasant. I and other Lib Dem councillors will keep working for a cleaner borough.

Labour has cut back on street cleaning several times. In October 2011 Labour councillors cut the frequency of street sweeping in residential streets to just once a week – a reduction from three times a week earlier in the year. Street sweeping in town centre areas at the weekends has also been badly affected.

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Posted in Campaigns, Clean Streets

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