Street cleaning programme

What we do

We are responsible for the removal of grit, mud, litter, grease, debris and leaf fall from adopted highways, streets, council owned car parks, public conveniences, markets and other public areas. We also clear town centre streets and shop fronts of litter on a daily basis. We maintain all residential streets to an acceptable standard of cleaning by sweeping them regularly. We also deal with the build up of leaves or any other conditions which could pose a risk to public health and safety.

Report a street cleaning issue

Clean up response 

There is a quick response to deal with cleaning issues on the highway, such as flytipping and dog fouling. We aim to deal with these issues in the following time scales once we have been notified of the problem:

We do not remove litter from private land, unadopted roads or unadopted footpaths as we do not maintain these areas.

Community involvement

We work closely with residents, communities and campaign groups to ensure we are maintaining your area to the highest standard. Our streets are cleaned by using both mechanical sweepers, which clean the roads and footpaths, and by manually litter picking and sweeping the areas which need it.

Campaigns

We regularly support Keep Britain Tidy and LitterFree Durham's  litter-pick campaigns and we're also carrying out specialist clean-ups in selected town centres and front streets as part of our Keep your community clean and tidy campaign.

Do your bit

We want you to feel good about the area you live, visit or work in and help make County Durham a desirable place. Keeping the highways clear of litter, street furniture clean and property free of graffiti is a responsibility shared between the council, residents and people who use our services.

You can help keep your village or town clean and tidy by:

• using the on-street rubbish and recycling bins where available
• wrapping chewing gum in its original wrapper and putting it in the litter bin
• keeping business waste off the public highway
• not throwing your cigarette butts on the ground. Use an ashtray, litter bin or an empty cigarette packet. See litter for more information.
• clearing up after your dog or any other animal in your responsibility when it fouls on the street, road, grass verges or park area. See dog fouling for more advice.

Standards

Our service aims to comply with the Environmental Protection Act - Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse, which sets out various standards for street cleansing. We monitor our performance using the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) benchmarks which identifies the standards that we have achieved in relation to litter, detritus, flyposting and graffiti.