Proposed changes to street cleaning and grounds maintenance services
Your chance to shape these services' future
Due to unprecedented financial pressures including the triple threat of high inflation, continuously low funding from central government and increasing needs in the community, we will no longer be able to continue street cleaning and grounds maintenance services as they currently are.
Please read the information below and then give us your feedback by taking the survey at the bottom of the page. The survey is open until Sunday 10 September.
Please note that it will be easier to take this survey using a laptop or desktop computer. It can be taken on a mobile phone or tablet, but will be more difficult.
If you need help with the survey, please drop into one of our libraries or call our customer services team on 0118 974 6000.
Why can't we continue with services as they are now?
- The cost of providing basic services is increasing dramatically, with spiralling inflation beyond the council's control, while increases in council tax are capped.
- Residents in the area get the least funding from central Government per person of any unitary authority in the country. Compared to other areas, residents in Wokingham Borough get more than £400 less per household each year towards their services than if it was funded in the same way as the average unitary authority. This is £30million per year in total.
What are we proposing?
The changes we are considering are to our street cleaning and grass cutting services. This includes proposals such as reducing the number of litter bins in the borough, the amount of sweeping that takes place and reducing grass cutting.
We have identified savings targets in each of these areas -- about £100,000 per year in grass cutting and an average of £200,000 per year in street cleansing.
Our proposals for how we do this are in the survey below and we want to know what you think of them and how they would impact you.
Please keep in mind that we have to make these savings, so we are asking for your views on how we propose to do this.
Your feedback will help refine our proposals, which will be considered by the council's Community and Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 2 October and will then go to an Executive Committee meeting on 26 October.
We are proposing changes to the following services:
- Litter bins
- Weed spraying
- Bottle banks storage area cleaning
- Town centre cleaning
- Non-town centre cleaning
- Road sweeping
- Footpath cleaning
- A329M and A33 cleaning
- Grass cutting
Interactive map of litter bins
See an interactive map of all the public litter bins in the borough.
You will need to zoom in to see the litter bins in an area and can search by postcode or parish.
If you left click on a litter bin, it will give you the location and unique reference number.
The litter bins proposed for removal have a red icon.
What's next?
Your feedback from the survey below, which is open until 10 September, will help refine our proposals. No decisions have yet been made.
Once we consider your feedback, we will take our amended proposals and the findings from the consultation to the council's Community and Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 2 October for consideration.
We expect a final decision will be made by the Executive Committee on 26 October.