Hyndburn's streets are the tidiest in the county (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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Hyndburn's streets are the tidiest in the county
9:02am Tuesday 4th September 2012 in News
By Emma Cruces, Reporter
PEOPLE in Hyndburn are celebrating after it cleaned up its act and was found to have tidiest streets in Lancashire.
Hyndburn began a campaign to improve its cleanliness record after 30 per cent of its streets were classed as ‘unacceptable’ by national standards in 2004/05.
Since then the council has made massive strides acting against grafitti, dog fouling and litter dropping.
And only two per cent of streets are now unacceptable.
The tiny number of untidy streets makes the borough the the best in the entire county.
In the past year alone, the council has managed to reduce calls relating to street cleansing from 3.1 per cent to 1.9 per cent.
The council has become well known for its tough stance on dog fouling, with a number of campaigns fought to keep irresponsible dog owners in line.
It also has two street sweepers permanently based in the town centre and this work is also being supplemented by an early morning mechanical sweep.
Litter bins are also now emptied at least once a day.
Leader of the council Miles Parkinson said: “I think we can all see the difference.
“A decade ago you would have to really watch your step walking down the street thanks to irresp-onsible dog owners.
“It could also be quite badly affected by litter in areas.
“This is one of our front line services and it is fantastic to see all the measures we put into place pay off.”
The council is also planning on providing town centre street swee-pers with a back pack hoover, which is effective at reaching difficult areas.
The borough’s area councils and voluntary and residents’ groups across Hyndburn are also said to have contributed with street cleaning events where free skips were provided.
The borough has also been one of the first to ban dogs without leads from cemeteries.
It has also seen wardens use undercover snooping tactics.
And it once piloted a special street sweeper nicknamed the ‘Super Dooper Pooper Scooper’.
Comments(5)
Noiticer
says...
2:56pm Tue 4 Sep 12
John Peters
says...
2:57pm Tue 4 Sep 12
Black Car Guy.
says...
10:55pm Tue 4 Sep 12
Pan-cake
says...
11:31pm Tue 4 Sep 12
The efforts were stared by the previous administration, and much to their credit in these difficult times, the current lot have seen this as a priority and have carried on.
The anti dog poo brigade,as always, are always most vocal, and this news item excites them once more. However, when I see my council tax being spent clearing up after the 'night time economy' (particularly at 8am on a Sunday morning) II become equally excited. There should be some way of taxing pubs and takeaways that open during the night ( for this is where most of the town centre litter comes from), with the proceeds going towards the Councils sterling efforts to improve our streets and keep them clean.
lcjfm03 says...
9:40am Tue 4 Sep 12
1. Dog fouling in Rishton is still unacceptably high. Some dog owners walking their dogs to Cut Wood park through the housing estates regularly let their dogs foul the pavements (and gardens) and don't pick up.
2. Refuse collectors don't pick up spillage from bags on collection days. Often after they've left there are residual cans and plastic bottles left behind.