COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF TALLAGHT AREA COMMITTEE (1)

Monday, January 23, 2012

QUESTION NO. 4

QUESTION: Councillor D. Looney

To ask the Manager to report on the change to the road-sweeping contract recently agreed and how it will affect the area under the remit of this Committee, giving reference to particular estates if possible.

REPLY:

The road-sweeping contract was tendered in late 2011 with a view to appointing the contractor in February 2012 and the contract to be awarded will provide for greater flexibility of the  cleaning services required by the Council.  The contract when awarded will include additional litter picking and weed removal in all areas, as well as an extension to the duration of the leaf clearance operation. The standard of cleaning required under the new contract has also been improved upon and  this combined with an increase in the extent of litter removal and weed control required will bring about an improvement in the cleanliness of the County.  It should be noted that there will be no change to the frequency of cleaning in the different areas covered by the contract, housing estates and dual carriageway roads will continue to be cleaned every three months with main roads continuing to be cleaned monthly.  Under the terms of the new contract the schedule for street cleaning will be drawn up in such a fashion and format that it can be posted on the South Dublin County Council website so that both the public and public representatives can see when each area was last cleaned and when it is scheduled to be cleansed again.

The Council utilises the services of both the Operations Unit, the Cleansing Unit based in Ballymount depot in conjunction with a private contractor who has dedicated teams that operate an extensive street-cleaning programme on main roads, local roads and estates.  It is the Council’s intention to schedule the works programme for the Operations and Cleansing Units in accordance with the regular road-sweeping schedule. Currently main roads in the Area are swept on a monthly basis and housing estates in the  area  are swept 4 times a year and gullies are cleaned once a year on a scheduled basis.  This works programme will ensure that areas can be cleaned in the interim periods between scheduled sweeps and indicators developed to enable an ongoing review of the level of resources and nature of the operations required. Dumping of household waste, white goods etc is littering  and those identified will be subject to enforcement proceedings.The Council are continuing to monitor the misuse of litter bins which are not designed for the disposal of household waste and glass bottles.  The onus is on the householder to dispose of these materials in a responsible manner through kerbside collections and bottle banks.

As part of the Councils Litter Management Plan, there will be a number of campaigns aimed at reducing the level of littering within the county, thereby reducing the resources required to cleanup after offenders and allowing the staff to be used in other operations.