Meeting to progress Baseline Agreements

The BID Team met the City Area Manager from the Highland Council and the Area Community Works Manager from TEC. The purpose of the meeting was to progress baseline agreements and develop solutions for waste bins that cause an obstruction after being placed on a street or pavement without any consultation with The Highland Council as roads authority, and, accordingly, without the consent of The Highland Council. The businesses as producers of waste have a duty of care for its storage and disposal. They are not permitted to place a trade waste container on the city streets and pavements for safety reasons. Businesses would like to ensure that alternative arrangements for storage and disposal exist so that the waste does not escape their control.

The Code of Practice on Litter & Refuse (Scotland) (www.littercode.com)

Scottish Local Authorities currently spend £65,000,000 a year on cleaning litter from Scottish streets and open spaces, but now armed with new guidance they will be better equipped to stamp out littering:

‘Town centre areas have proved to require the highest levels of service delivery for street cleansing due to the high density populations using our city, the concentration of businesses plus the daily influx of employees, shoppers and other users of our city centre facilities. Over the last few years, cleanliness monitoring has shown that city centre areas have the highest percentage presence of pedestrian dropped litter, with 93% of sites surveyed in town centre areas having general litter present. Within the general litter category, smoking related litter is the most common type of litter found in city centre areas, observed in 87% of sites surveyed. This is followed by confectionery related litter, present in 51% of sites, drinks related litter, present in 31% of sites, and fast food litter, present in 10% of sites surveyed.

Detailed below is a list of options for dealing with different types of litter problems commonly found in city centre areas:

• general litter
• smoking related litter
• gum
• fast food waste
• overflowing / inadequately disposed commercial waste
• advertising materials
• abandoned shopping or luggage trolleys’

The guidelines help to explain who has a duty to clean public spaces, what their responsibility is, how each and everyone can tell if a place is clean and what to do if public places aren’t of an acceptable standard in terms of litter and fly-tipping.

We all have a duty to keep Inverness litter free

Inverness City Centre Management provides a City Centre Officer to ensure that graffiti and fly posters are removed before businesses open in the morning. Overflowing litter bins and collecting stick need more of our attention. Additional early morning cleaning services are required to ensure that the area is tidy after the commercial waste is collected by the public and private garbage disposal companies.

We will provide cleaning services to remove chewing gum from our city streets and pavements. We will monitor council and business cleaning and waste management carefully.