Harlow Cleans Up in Street Scene Survey
A survey of environmental standards has
produced pleasing results for Harlow, with the number of Good
ratings exceeding the national average.
The Government has commissioned ENCAMS to
survey every council area in England over the next two years. The
survey shows how the area performs on issues such as litter,
flyposting, condition of roads and street furniture, graffiti and
bins. Each is graded as either good, satisfactory, un-satisfactory
or poor.
Harlow Council scored Good results in key
areas such as clearing flytipping, flyposting and graffiti, the
tidiness of waste left out and clearance of leaf fall.
Overall, 30% of the areas assessed in the town were rated as Good,
4% above the national average. The area was also deemed
satisfactory in clearing weed growth and picking litter from
landscaped areas. Some of the issues surveyed, such as highways,
are not the responsibility of Harlow Council.
However the survey also highlighted areas
where there is room for improvement. The survey identified
poor standards on the condition of highway infrastructure, street
furniture and and bus stops, and improvement action plans are now
being developed by the Council and in partnership with Essex County
Council on the areas maintained by them.
Councillor for the Environment and Community
Eleanor Macy said: “Overall we are very pleased that our score for
“Good” is above the national average. In particular I am pleased
that our key environmental issues such as flytipping, flyposting
and graffiti are being tackled and scored highly, above the
national average.
“There are also areas for improvement. In
particular we performed unsatisfactorily with regard to litter and
litter bins. The survey showed that the vast majority of litter was
due to smoking material and since this survey ended in March 2007,
we have put in extra bins specifically to combat this problem. We
are now aware of where we didn’t do so well and will be looking at
this critically over the next few months.”
-ends-
View the
study
NOTE TO EDITORS
The survey will be available from today on the
ENCAMS website. It covers the period April 2006 – March 2007. Some
of the issues/ areas surveyed are not the responsibility of Harlow
Council, in particular items relating to highways, footpaths and
some signage.