“We can’t have two government agencies at odds with each other, it isn’t sustainable”
A stand-off has emerged between Stormont and Belfast City Council over who clears up the leaves in the city.
Elected representatives at a council committee meeting at City Hall this week backed a proposal by SDLP Councillor Gary McKeown surrounding leaf clearance from roads and pavements. The committee agreed to “find out, and if required get legal advice, on who exactly has legal responsibility for the clearing of leaves from streets and pavements in the city.”
Council officers are stating that fallen leaves do not count as litter under legislation, and therefore the council is not legally obliged to clear them under waste disposal, while the Stormont Department for Infrastructure is saying the opposite.
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During the monthly People and Communities Committee meeting on Tuesday (November 4), Councillor McKeown said: “There appears to be a stand-off between the (Stormont) Department for Infrastructure and the council over whose responsibility it is to clear leaves from pavements and roads in the city.
“This comes round every year in the Autumn, and no doubt many members around this table receive correspondence from residents about the fact that their drains are absolutely choked with leaves and are requesting something be done about it. The flood levels seen over the past week has brought this into particularly sharp focus given the impact it has had on communities.”
He said: “DfI’s position officially is that street sweeping, including the clearing of leaves, falls under the council’s responsibility, as part of their remit for the collection of waste, and the removal of litter. But the council’s position is that it has no legal duty to clear leaf fall, but cleansing staff do their best to remove any build-up on the pavements as part of their work, where and when possible.
“Both of these positions can’t be true, because they are in direct competition with each other in terms of where that responsibility lies. And so the issue is then, where does that put residents and businesses who are dealing with this year-in, year out, and in extreme circumstances, suffer an extreme impact as a result.
“Is it appropriate that people are outside their homes and premises, desperately poking at drains to get them cleared before flood water rises and enters those premises? It is happening quite regularly. And we know that more severe weather events are going to occur due to climate change, so it is more important than ever that we get on top of this.”
He added: “It also doesn’t help that DfI stated commitment to clear gullies appears somewhat ambiguous, because I know a number of locations that have been reported over a long period of time remain uncleared. And we see that every time there is heavy rain, those roads fill with water at the locations of those blocked drains.
“In addition of course there is the issue of leaves on pavements and roads, presenting a risk of injury from people slipping. This needs to be brought to a head, we skirt around it every year, but we never seem to get a determined resolution about what is going to be done and where the responsibilities lie.”
He said: “I do want to acknowledge the great work our teams do on the ground to clear leaves every year, particularly at hot spots. This is very much appreciated, I know it is no small effort is required to do it, particularly around South Belfast.
“But that is not sustainable. Our staff are already under pressure, particularly in areas with ongoing issues with fly-tipping and littering. We cannot just leave it to good luck and availability of staff to cover this.
“Ultimately we need to get absolute clarity on who is responsible for lifting leaves on pavements and roads, and from that, adequate resources must be put in place to deliver this, rather than being managed on an ad hoc basis, which seems to be the case at the minute. Then people can know what kind of service to expect, so those who are responsible can be held to account if it isn’t delivered.” He added: “We can’t have two government agencies at odds with each other, it isn’t sustainable.”
A council officer said at the meeting: “I was not aware that DfI was at odds with us until this occurred. It is unfortunate there was a press release that went out on the DfI website saying it was our responsibility. We have done excellent work in relation to this, with them, and we work quite closely with them on a range of issues across the city.
“We have a dedicated leaf-fall programme that we put in place for 12 weeks every year, and we try to focus on the areas where we know the leaves will accumulate, but it is not our legal responsibility to do this. We are very clear on that, we will go back to legal (services)and we will seek clarification on that.
“We have been told that fallen leaves do not fall into the definition of the litter order, and so it is not our responsibility to lift them. It means the responsibility is with DfI, who have specific powers in relation to cleaning drains under the Roads Act.”
The Department for Infrastructure spokesperson said during last week’s floods in Belfast: “Street sweeping, including the clearing of leaves, falls under councils’ responsibility as part of their remit for the collection of waste and removal of litter.”
They added that DfI “aims to inspect and clean gullies once annually and also provides further ad-hoc cleaning, within available budgets, to address and specific localised issues or deal with severe weather events.”
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