FROME Town Council has revealed it has reported street cleaning problems 40 times this month alone to Mendip District Council, as concerns continue to grow about rubbish in the town.
Following an article in the last issue of Frome Times, in which a local woman urged people not to drop litter, members of the town council revealed that they are not happy with the work being done by the contractors cleaning Frome’s streets.
It was revealed that the council has already contacted Mendip District Council 40 times during August to discuss the issue.
Town councillor Richard Ackroyd said, “The street cleaning and litter collection service has been inconsistent for as long as I can remember – and certainly since I was elected last year.
“There are times that the town looks very clean and tidy. Then at other times it feels like areas are left for days, weeks and even months. More recently, I’ve certainly noticed that places like the Market Yard and Badcox have been looking untidy and unloved. I would say that the last couple of months have been particularly bad.
“I don’t want to criticize any particular personnel, but it does seem as though The Landscape Group [the responsible contractor] either do not have enough resources to fulfill their contract or that they have not allocated appropriate resources to the problem.
“The sad fact of the matter is that the cleanliness of Frome’s streets appears not to be properly monitored conscientiously enough by Mendip, and the contractors TLG are either understaffed or don’t care.
“I think we’re being short-changed. I want to see Frome consistently clean and tidy and that these standards are met first time, all of the time.”
Chris Stringer, environment officer at Frome Town Council, says it is often he who makes the calls to Mendip.
Chris tells Frome Times, “We’re not always complaining; it’s more like reporting back. We want to work with people to get the job done properly, but monitoring standards is Mendip’s job, not ours.
“I think the problem is the inconsistency. Sometimes the town is really clean and tidy and it looks great, so that’s the standard we expect. When it falls short it’s frustrating.
“Problems are typically sorted quickly but it’s not an effective use of resources to have people come back and do the same job more than once.”
A district council spokesperson said, “Mendip District Council has a contract with The Landscape Group to carry out street cleansing in Frome on our behalf.
“There are certain circumstances where the response time may not be met, such as when access for the sweeper is blocked by parked vehicles, and in such circumstances we work with The Landscape Group in order to rectify as soon as possible.
“We also sit on the Keep Frome Clean panel with Frome Town Council and it has been requested these meetings reconvene to ensure that the cleanliness of Frome is being addressed.
“We would like to ask members of the public to assist in keeping Frome clean and presentable in all areas by using public litter bins to dispose of their waste; it has been noted that the main offender of litter in Frome is cigarette ends so please ensure these are disposed of these appropriately.”
The council said there are measures in place to penalise the contractor when targets are not met, but did not reveal how much The Landscape Group was paid for the contract.
Danny Mitchell, operations director at The Landscape Group, told Frome Times on Monday, “TLG’s contract monitoring data is based on random inspections and shared with Mendip Council on a monthly basis. This shows that overall we are maintaining a good standard in Frome.
“However, we know that there have been a couple of instances where parts of the town centre have been missed, for which we do apologise, and we are working hard to put this right. We’ve already deployed additional resources, and have seen a noticeable improvement in the town centre, which is why we are surprised at this press coverage. We had compliments on the improvement only four days ago.
“The cleanliness of Frome town centre is very important to us, and it’s not right to say that ‘we don’t care’. The service we provide to all five towns in the district on behalf of Mendip Council is high priority to our company and our staff, most of whom work extremely hard to deliver value for money during these times of austerity.
“It is TLG’s view that we are properly resourced. However, when things go wrong, it’s absolutely right that members of the public let us know. We fully acknowledge our responsibility as the clean and green contractor. We would, though, appreciate help from local businesses, to deter their customers from excessive littering if possible, as cigarette butts in particular are a major problem in the town. We would gladly empty new cigarette bins, if local businesses wanted to install these outside their premises.”
