Investigation begins

OK, I sent off a few emails to various people about the state of things - 1) Tower Hamlets Street Management and 2) McDonald's Head Office.

I also requested a few statistics from Tower Hamlets under the Freedom of Information Act. I want to understand exactly how much they are doing about litter in our borough. The new changes to the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environments Act 2005 gives local authorities a lot more power. I hope they are making use of it.

While digging around I stumbled across the environment targets document for Tower Hamlets for 2006/07. This has some interesting material in it.

Launch of the Local Environment Teams (LETS) – 2005/06 saw the introduction of LETS teams across the Borough who areworking closely with communities and safer neighbourhood teams to quickly target Enviro Crime, dumping, litter, graffiti and flyposting and respond more effectively to local priorities.

Our LETS manager seems to have gone - so I'm going to track the new one down. I've been out of touch for about six months.

Objective and Lead Officer - To improve the cleanliness of the borough’s streets including housing estates and parks.
Contact officer: John Palmer, Service Head - Street Services (Ext. 6769)
Key Activity - Implement enforcement activities to tackle Envirocrime (SP)
Progress Milestones
- Number of fixed penalty notices for trade and fast food establishments increased from 1,035 to 2,500 by March 2007, with 1,250 issued by September 2006
- To issue 100 fixed penalty notices for dumping of domestic waste under new legislative powers, with 30 issued by September 2006
- 150 private properties assisted with graffiti and flyposting removal by September 2006, with 300 assisted by March 2007
- To issue 200 notices for illegal flyposting by March 2007 under new legislative powers, with 60 issued by September 2006

I'll also check how they are progressing with the achievable targets mentioned above.