Ashington's Collaborative Approach Aims to Enhance the Town and Tackle the blight of Fly-Tipping and Litter
The Enhanced Neighbourhood Services Partnership between Ashington Town Council and Northumberland County Council aims to make ongoing improvements to keep the town’s streets and estates clean and litter free, and to improve the environment by providing a pleasant and safe place to live. These are two of the four priorities of Ashington Town Council.
As the current agreement comes to an end in March 2024, a review is underway. Key discussion points have focused on improving the appearance of Ashington through more needs-based street sweeping and cleansing, addressing overgrown vegetation, tackling littering and fly tipping, and more consistent inspections to celebrate good work while also identifying areas for improvement. It is hoped that altering cleansing and sweeping schedules will free up resource for other beautification tasks. This includes extra weed control, hedge trimming, and work in high-traffic amenity and visitor areas. The impact of trials in these areas will be closely monitored.
A key focus is identifying opportunities to reduce waste so that funds can be redirected to other priority areas. Fly-tipping and litter are a blight on the town – but how do we address this?
Between April and September, there were over 1,000 fly tipping incidents collected by rapid response in Ashington. Reducing fly tipping would free up staff time that could then focus on proactive cleaning and greening initiatives.
We want to promote civic pride and to collaborate to make Ashington an attractive, welcoming town for all. With continued partnership between our Councils and the community, Ashington is taking proactive steps. Residents are encouraged to report fly-tipping using the NCC Fix My Street app, or via the website. Community participation through activities like litter picking is valued, and the efforts of groups like Ashington Community Litter Project, and individual residents working alone, is vast. Ideas for what more we can do would be welcomed.
There is a desire to explore options for enhancing grass cutting and grounds maintenance to improve the appearance of public spaces. However, this will need to align with upcoming changes to biodiversity and service standards across Northumberland.
Overall, the collaborative approach is to ensure those resources being invested are towards activities that will visibly improve Ashington's environment and appearance.
Thank you to Ashington Community Litter Project for their continued efforts, and for the images that have been used in the montage.
