In November’s Vale Matters column, Councillor Craig Reeves, who represents Harvington and Norton as an independent, calls for improvements to street cleaning across the district and people taking more civic pride in our local areas.
THE LEAVES have turned amber, the nights have crept up on us and it is turning quickly into ‘big coat weather’.
Along with the changing season, amongst the fallen leaves in our town is unfortunately a cocktail of weeds, grime and litter – as we have something of an epidemic in the way our town is being mistreated.
The leaves should be cleared, along with the increasing number of cigarette butts and fast food wrappers, lodged in-between the cobbles and gathered amongst the nooks of our historic buildings.
Wychavon is responsible for the cleanliness of our streets – and do so by contracting this service out to a company named FCC, which has held the responsibility since 2018.
The contract comes with some complexity. FCC undertakes both our street cleaning and household waste collection, of which the latter seldom see’s complaint.
Since 2018 when the contract commenced, it’s my opinion that it became very quickly ‘out of date’, as our town evolved and the national political and economic climate shifted, throw a pandemic into the mix and so began a trend of decline. We are feeling the effects of this now, with the services not keeping up with the demands of the town.
It goes without saying that we should not drop litter, and this includes cigarette butts, of which we have copious amounts of spread along our pavements.
The conversations behind the scenes are very progressive, with focus on addressing the shortfall in service, leveraging from the contract (using Key Performance Indicator, ‘KPI’ measurements) and there are solutions being considered and implemented to fill the gaps in our service.
There is also discussion amongst Evesham Town Council, Wychavon and FCC about empowering the street cleaning team with better tools, such as the Overton ‘sucker upper’ (simply described as an advanced, suction powered wheelie bin!) to make the contracted time spent cleaning our streets more efficient.
I have been discussing with officers and fellow councillors about messaging and campaigning with respect to deterring town users from littering. But this issue is multifaceted. With the contract due to end in 2028, conversations about the future tender for the service begin now. It is imperative that a new contract is detailed and future proofed.
Evesham, has the wonderful benefit of being a historic market town, and as a community and a council, we owe it to those who live in and around the town, to raise the bar.
I hope you will see an improvement to the town’s cleanliness over the coming weeks.
Please visit: wychavon.gov.uk/report-it to report any instances of littering.
