Speech by Jonathan Shaw MP at the ENCAMS Cleaner, Safer, Greener Conference, Manchester - 4 March 2008
Good morning. Thank you for inviting me here today.
To one degree or another, the quality of our local environment reflects just about everything that is occurring – or is expected to occur – within our communities. It acts as a kind of health check on our local neighbourhoods.
The few incidents of graffiti, tagging or the odd upturned supermarket trolley in the local canal may seem a minor offence to the perpetrators. Just an inconvenience for others to clear up. Or even a bit of a laugh. But if they are left unchecked the problems can spread and the ‘broken window effect’ can become a reality.
The last thing any of us want to see are lifeless streets. That no-one cares about. Or cares to spend time in.
But there are remedies to these symptoms. At Defra our local environment goals are for cleaner streets, city centres and countryside. We want to see less litter blowing around our roads, a reduction in the number fly tipping incidents cluttering up our alley ways and fewer abandoned vehicles blighting our neighbourhoods. I know that you share in this and have been making good use of the powers in the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act.
The legislative improvements have helped many of you when dealing with issues such as abandoned vehicles. This Act enables many of you in this audience to remove a vehicle without sticking a 24 hour notice of removal on its windscreen. This approach reduces the risk of arson, theft and criminal damage.
The Act also made dropping litter anywhere, including private land and rivers, ponds and lakes an offence and confirmed that cigarette butts and discarded chewing gum are litter.
A further recent demonstration of our commitment in this area can be seen in the form of the revised Local Government Performance Framework. Here the number of indicators that authorities were required to report against were dramatically reduced from over one thousand two hundred to just under two hundred. Despite this drastic cut thirteen indicators from Defra remain. Including the two Local Environmental Quality indicators on clean neighbourhoods and flytipping.
The new National Indicator on Street Cleanliness (NI195) will measure street cleanliness. I’d encourage you to join one of the workshops being held later today covering this new indicator. There is also ongoing help and support available through ENCAMS.
Early indications are that the indicator is being well received by local authorities and I know many of you are actively pursuing inclusion of the indicator in your Local Area Agreements.
It’s clear to me that the Government’s commitment is being backed up by action from many of your authorities represented here today. It’s interesting to see that many of you are issuing more fixed penalty notices for littering. Tough measures, we want to give you the tools. With more people paying up when they get caught.
Latest figures show that these fixed penalty notices have risen by nearly a third from just over thirty three thousand to just over forty-three thousand during the last financial year.
I know one of the big concerns is if the Courts don’t take you seriously, such as on littering. I find it reassuring that the number of prosecutions is increasing and you are becoming more adept at the task, and I congratulate you for that. Even if the Court imposes a fine that is little more than the amount of a fixed penalty notice it is worth remembering that the person also gets a criminal record; which is a serious thing.
I think it’s this partnership approach that will win out in the end. I’m also encouraged to see such interest and involvement in initiatives such as the Chewing Gum Action Group. Those of you that took part in the 2007 campaigns achieved great successes and I’d be delighted if you consider taking part in this year’s campaign.
These initiatives concentrate the mind at times like this when many of you are negotiating Local Area Agreements. Particularly when deciding the
LEQ issues which are a priority in your area and whether they should be included in your top thirty five indicator targets.
I personally would say they very much are. Today we are publishing the results of the sixth annual LEQ survey of England. The results suggest we are holding our own, the battle is that I’m afraid we need to do better.
In the survey we saw a modest decline in cleansing standards with the headline indicator of Litter slipping back to Unsatisfactory.
Elsewhere the two key environmental crime indicators of Fly Posting and Graffiti removal remain pretty good. Fast food litter, which has risen year on year since the start of our LEQ survey settled down this year – which is again fairly encouraging.
As you can see there are modest victories and defeats in many of the areas surveyed. There are real strengths to build on and I wholeheartedly congratulate you on those. There are also weaknesses to remedy, and we must all face up to the task ahead. Today’s survey results cover the last financial year ending in March 2007. Since then England went smoke free in July. With virtually all enclosed public and work places now banning smoking. I hope this doesn’t mean an increase in the amount of smoking related litter in the streets as more and more people use the area around their local pub, restaurant and office as an ashtray, but we must all be prepared for the possibility that it may.
The new smokefree law may reduce the number of people who smoke. This may have a knock on effect of reducing the amount of smoking related litter. Which in our latest survey remains the most frequently recurring item of litter being seen at over three quarters of all sites surveyed.
But this possible reduction doesn’t mean we can ease up on littering or street cleansing. That’s why today along with publishing the latest LEQ results we are also launching the local environment skills website. This will provide tips, know how and opportunities for anyone involved in any activity that improves their local environment - from street cleaning, through enforcement to education it will help those involved in the frontline battle on the streets to those putting in there places strategies to keep local areas clean.
I am very happy to hear that Paul Kennedy, Community Warden at Birmingham City Council, was announced last night the winner of the Cleaner Safer Greener Network Award
As you can see there’s lots of going on in our constant effort to improve the areas where we live. But on the other side of the coin there’s a lot to deal with to reach the goals that everyone in this room is striving to achieve.
I’m determined that, in partnership with you and the local communities we serve that we can effectively tackle the issue of unacceptable local environmental quality. We owe it to ourselves, to our communities and to our country. A healthy local community is good for the environment, good for the economy and good for society.
Thank you.
Page published: 4 March 2008