Neighbourhood clean up 'quick wins', Bournemouth

The Safe and Clean team

Street warden Caroline Smith: Children are being encouraged to report incidents of bullying or 'suspicious adults' to her team

Keeping Springbourne and Boscombe's streets tidy is a team effort, with four street wardens in constant liaison with the Safe and Clean team. 'The community survey found that 66% of people felt that litter and rubbish were a problem,' says community involvement officer Sue Warr. There was initial confusion over their roles. 'We get confused with the bin men all the time,' says Safe and Clean worker Jamie.

The street warden service is neither a new nor unique concept but, a year after neighbourhood management arrived, Boscombe's was facing the chop. Neighbourhood management stepped in with funding and extended the service to cover both neighbourhoods, doubling its size from two workers to four. 'Because we work through the council,' says street warden Caroline Smith 'we're another point of contact. But Safe and Clean have made our job a lot easier because we can get things done a lot faster.'

Safe and Clean was a new departure. Neighbourhood management's budget pays for four men and a van who go out in teams of two - one pair targeting general litter and the pair with the van picking up heavier waste, including a free bulky goods collection. The street wardens can alert them to particular problem areas and, as all calls go through a database at the council's depot, they can be prioritised according to urgency. 'We had a report of a mattress being removed in 12 minutes recently,' says board member Dee Henderson. 'It was a record.'

Working for Safe and Clean is anything but. 'We get a lot of needles and the dead animals aren't very nice,' says Jamie. But the job has it's up-sides too. 'We get to know a lot of people because it's quite a small community - we know all the shop owners and the people walking up the road with a can of Special Brew!' But at the end of January neighbourhood management's budget for this service dries up. 'We're trying to get the council to recognise that this is a service they really do need,' says Sue Bickler.

The Safe and Clean team working with the street wardens

The Safe and Clean team's work is supplemented by the efforts of 12 volunteer street representatives , including Henderson. 'They go out weekly with monitoring forms grading each street on a scale of A to D and noting down any graffiti, dog mess, etc,' says Warr. That information is then collated and graded again by a volunteer in the neighbourhood management office and sent to the council's street waste team.

'They also observe what's going on, distribute information and report back to us on matters like pavement conditions, drainage and gulleys. In an ideal world, I'd have 130 street reps,' says Warr, 'one for every road in the area.'