More than half of residents ranked clean streets and better local environment as most important in making somewhere a good place to live, and 64 per cent chose the category when we asked what the priorities should be when setting the Council’s budget for 2007/08, ranking it second amongst all priorities.

In response:

• The areas of Ilford and Hainault had a 25 per cent decrease in chewing gum nuisance due to the installation of gum targets in these locations, and we are testing pavement coatings to better combat chewing gum litter and more effective street washing.
• Weekly kerbside recycling collection was introduced to all suitable properties and residents took up the challenge of recycling their household waste, resulting in a marked increase in participation and tonnage collected. The proportion of household waste recycled increased from 18 per cent in 2006/07 to 21 per cent in 2007/08.
• To tackle graffiti, we introduced and managed a “Pay-Back” scheme, which requires young offenders to restore defaced and damaged property by cleaning and repainting graffiti on garages and out buildings in rear alleys and access roads.
• We also negotiated ground-breaking contracts with BT and Virgin Media for the removal of graffiti on and maintenance of their communication boxes on Redbridge streets
• To support London’s new Low Emission Zone, we negotiated a long-term supply of 27 vehicles to support the Refuse and Recycling contracts. These vehicles will be able to collect larger amounts of additional waste streams making the best use of a vehicle of their size.
• We introduced “zoned” refuse and recycling collections so vehicles work in the same areas of the Borough each day in order to reduce vehicle mileage and our carbon footprint.
• Traffic congestion remains a priority for Redbridge: we have introduced Council funded Traffic Management Schemes to improve traffic management and we continued the delivery of a Transport for London (TfL) funded programme of Local Safety Schemes.