27/10/2008: Brent's streets officially cleaner
Brent Council has welcomed news that local streets are cleaner than ever, according to official figures.
Newly-released results from independent assessors Capital Standards/ENCAMS show that the borough's streets have got much cleaner in the year since the council's new, first-class waste and street-cleaning service was introduced.
The survey gave the borough a 78.7 per cent score for street-cleanliness - an improvement of more than ten per cent since April last year.
The result put Brent 12th in the London league of 28 boroughs taking part in the survey - a rise of five places on last year.
Inspectors found that, in particular, both the amount of litter and fly-tipping had gone down markedly.
The improvement is thanks to the council's decision to invest an extra £2.1m a year from April 2007 to fund first-class street-cleaning and recycling services.
Provided by contractor Veolia Environmental Services, it includes an extra weekly clean for hundreds of streets in residential areas and more frequent street cleaning for business areas like Park Royal and smaller shopping areas like Church Lane, Kingsbury. Town centres such as Wembley, Harlesden and Neasden and main roads in Zones 1 and 2 are now being cleaned from 6am to 10pm seven days a week.
Cllr Daniel Brown, Brent Council's lead member for Highways and Transportation, said: "Brent Council introduced measures such as 16 hours of cleaning a day for main roads and town centres because we were determined to make our streets cleaner.
"Our decision to provide a first-class service is paying off. Most people will have noticed how much tidier the borough's streets are looking and we are continuing to make improvements all the time."
Veolia Environmental Services Contract Manager Thomas Paris said: "We are delighted that our strong partnership with Brent Council is producing such evidently noticeable results.
"Nevertheless, we are continually looking to better our performance and there are challenging times ahead. The summer is always a busy period not to mention all the events at Wembley Stadium. However, these are the sort of challenges we relish and we will ensure that we do not let our standards slip."