West Lothian Council delivers

Street care and cleaning

 

We know that the residents of West Lothian place Street Cleanliness and the problem of litter as high on their priority list. As a result, West Lothian Council has a dedicated Street Cleansing Team, part of NETs and Land Services, who are responsible for keeping our Streets, Roads, Footpaths, Parks and Open Spaces clear from Litter and other debris.

This service operates a full programme of Street Cleansing in Local Areas to ensure that town centres and streets are cleaned regulalry and when necessary. We use a combination of litter picking, manual sweeping and mechanical sweeping to remove litter and keep streets clean. As well as providing a comprehensive Street Cleansing service we also provide a large number of litter bins and dog fouling bins throughout West Lothian, which are emptied on a regular basis.

The Cleanliness of our Streets and Local Areas is monitored by Keep Scotland Beautiful and each local Authority is given a Cleanliness index score. The target cleanliness score is 67 and in 06/07 we scored 71 followed by 68 in 07/08. In 2008/09 we improved our score to 69.

 

Improvements in the Service

 

To help improve the service and the cleanliness of West Lothian we have implemented a number of changes to the service. These include: a reviwew of shift patterns, inlcuding weekend working, for staff to ensure that we are getting optimum use of resources the maximun amount of time. We have also employed a number of seasonal staff to supplement the Street Cleansing squads for the busy spring and summer schedules, which includes gala - days and other community events.

 

Community Involvement

In addition to the hard work of the Street Cleansing service our Environmental Wardens also contribute to addressing street cleanliness by taking enforcement action and by supporting a variety of community initiatives, in partnership with local schools and community groups, to help educate school children about the problem of litter and encourage everyone to play their part in looking after our local environment. To find out more about the work of the Environmental Wardens please use the following link: Environmental Wardens (new window)

In May 2008 West Lothian Council were awarded the Keep Scotland Beautiful award in recognition for the Spring Community Clean Ups which were carried out by Local Primary Schools in partnership with staff from NETs and Land Services. Over 3000 local people got involved, more people per head of population than any other Local Authority.

 

This success has been followed up in 2009 as the Wardens were awarded the Outstanding Acheivement Award form Keep Scotland Beautiful. Almost 7000 people form West Lothian participated in Clean - Up events during April - more than double the number form last year and again a greater number of people than form any other local authority in Scotland.

You can help play your part in maintaining an attractive and clean environment by reporting littering, dog fouling or fly tipping to our dedicated hotline number on 0800 616446