New 7 Year Cleaning Contract Won By Continental Landscapes Ltd
Worth £3.8m a year and staring April 2013
Councillors will be asked to approve a new street cleaning contract that aims to maintain and build on the borough’s reputation for having some of the cleanest streets in inner London.
The new seven year deal, worth £3.8m a year, will begin next April and has been drawn up to guarantee that Wandsworth’s residential areas, highways and town centres continue to be rated among the capital’s cleanest.
Under the terms of the contract, which is set to be awarded to Continental Landscapes Ltd, every residential road in the borough will receive at least two weekly sweeps and cleans. Busy residential roads with a high footfall could be cleaned as many as seven times a week
Town centres like Putney & Wandsworth will be cleaned at least three times a day but Tooting and Clapham Junction will receive six cleans every day.
Cleaning schedules will be fully co-ordinated with the borough’s refuse collection teams so that street cleaners follow close behind dustcarts to ensure that spillages from binbags and any flytips are dealt with speedily and efficiently.
And each Autumn dedicated teams of cleaners will be employed to rapidly remove leaves from pavements and footpaths, ensuring they do not become slippery and dangerous for pedestrians.
Privately owned alleyways which are next to the public highway and often prone to flytipping will continue to be cleared to prevent them becoming eyesores or health hazards.
The existing bridge and subway cleansing service will also continue. These are regular intensive cleans of walls and pavements in subways and underneath rail and road bridges
Mechanical sweepers will continue to be used to pick up litter and debris from footpaths. These can also be fitted with snowploughs and grit dispensers to clear snow and ice from pavements during cold snaps. The new contract also requires the removal of unsightly weeds and vegetation from footpaths and pavements.
Continental Landscapes Ltd, which has the street cleaning contract in neighbouring Richmond, beat off competition from rival companies by guaranteeing to meet the town hall’s tough and demanding standards on cleanliness at a cost that delivers a saving of £130,000 every year to council tax payers.
The council’s environment spokesman Cllr Jonathan Cook said:
“People who live in Wandsworth know that the council attaches huge importance in keeping our streets clean and tidy. We have worked extremely hard over many years to provide our residents, businesses and visitors with a clean environment and we are determined to fully maintain that record.
“We have drawn up a rigorous and demanding contract that will deliver clean streets and town centres for the next seven years. This has been done with the twin aims of delivering a top quality street cleaning operation and offering our taxpayers the best possible value for money. I’m delighted to say that this deal delivers on both counts.”
Last year the council’s street cleaners collected more than 9,500 tonnes of litter, detritus and flytipped waste. This included a record tally of 221 tonnes of leaves removed from pavements last autumn. These leaves were all composted and then used in the borough’s parks and open spaces.
September 18, 2012