More greening and less rubbish dumping?

1 February, 2020 | Consultations, Environment, Greening, Our Neighbourhood | 10 comments

We want your ideas

The problem of on-street rubbish dumping and the need for more greenery are frequently mentioned by our members as important issues for all of us living and working in Fitzrovia.

The FitzWest Forum has supported various schemes to improve waste collection and deal with fly tipping. There is still a lot of progress to be made in this area and discussions are on going with Westminster Council on ways to deal with this.

One way to combat dumping is by improving the street scape – and a relatively quick way to do this is by planting and greening. The hope is that this will both deter dumping and also bring some much needed greenery into the area.  We are planning to apply for funding from the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)  which is a levy that local authorities can choose to charge on new developments in their area. The money is used to support development by funding infrastructure that the council, local community and neighbourhoods want.

We are very keen to for our members to suggest where potential planting could take place. With the help of the wider membership last year, we had previously identified various ‘dumping hot spots’ which you can see on the map. We have two questions for you.

  1. Which of these do you think would be best suited for adding planters and greening?
  2. Are there any other places you would suggest? Several sites have been identified in the central area of FitzWest – but what about the North and South?

Please comment on this page or email your ideas to us at info@fitzwest.org. We will collect all the suggestions together and select the most popular locations for our application.

Fitzwest Street Dumping Hot Spots

 

10 Comments

  1. A M

    Some of the places highlighted are or were official ‘dumps’ eg they have/had recycling and household rubbish bins like the one at the junction of Weymouth Street and Great Portland Street but if the bins are full people have to leave the rubbish on the pavement next to them. Langham Street and Gosfield Street junction used to have two recycling bins until about 2014 as did Ogle Street and Riding House Street. Why were the bins removed? People often dump larger household items illegally to avoid disposal fees. The Westminster CC street cleaning teams do a great job but there needs to be recycling bins as well as tree planting at the map locations 2 – 12 and more man-power to empty the bins. In Suffolk, recycling centres accept ‘TVs, Monitors, PCs, Sky boxes, DVD players, Consoles, Laptops, Audio, Power tools, Bikes, Dyson’s, Henry’s, Mowers and Strimmers’ that are serviced and re-sold. The council works with young people, homeless and long term unemployed across Norfolk and Suffolk.

    • Julia Haythorn

      Thanks – some good observations and ideas about recycling.

  2. Edwina Lonsdale

    The corner of Wells Street with Marylebone Passage seems to be a magnet for dumping,
    The extended pavement area where Wells Street meets Ridinghouse Street is perfect for planting

    • Julia Haythorn

      Thanks Edwina.

  3. Dee

    The corner of Riding House St / Candover St seems to be a popular place to dump due to it being a relatively wide expanse of pavement. I’d suggest this as an ideal place for planting.

    • Julia Haythorn

      Thanks Dee.

    • Paul

      I’d like to echo Dee’s comment. The west-side corner of Riding House St / Candover St (outside the hairdresser’s) is regarded as a general dump by many. I even see a resident from Foley Street regularly dumping his rubbish there, and I recently saw a driver stop his van to unload building rubbish (presumably he’d been looking-out for a rubbish dump during his travels).

      My only concern is if we are successful in preventing rubbish at that point is that some will simply begin dumping it on the opposite corner (i.e. the east-side corner of Riding House St / Candover St), which has nearly as much expanse of pavement — so maybe some planting is needed there too.

      • Julia Haythorn

        Thanks Paul. Yes – that is why it’s important to also enforce against dumping while at the same time discouraging it from happening with the greening. All sites noted. Thank you.

  4. Chris

    I agree with Paul that the hotspots do have the potential merely to be relocated if the existing ones are effectively policed. Only if out of hours refuse dumping and furniture dumping is dealt with when it occurs is it likely to reduce.

    The dumping at the corner of Langham Street and Gosfield Street by example comes from two sources:

    1. Local residents believing they can put their household rubbish and recycling out at any time and if they place it here at a distance from where they live there will be no consequences.
    2. Refurbishment of properties or tenacies coming to an end and the occupiers determining it is easier to put their mattresses and furniture on the street rather than paying for this to be removed by the Council or another refuse removal company in the normal way. This is purely about cost and convenience and not lack of knowledge. Residents are aware that low income families can be provided with this service by the Council for free.

    All recent cases of street dumping to this corner have been recorded as coming from the mansion flats on Langham Street itself or from the flats in Gosfield Street. These areas have been heavily leafletted by the Council and the dumping location has a ‘no dumping’ sign so we need to find a way to let residents know that this is not only illegal but that this will be enforced against. Until anecdotally it is known that dumping is enforced, fines are issued and collected will those few residents involved understand this is both anti-social and not something they can get away with, will the ever present street dumping reduce/ stop.

    Westminster has arguably the best on street refuse collection service in London in terms of frequency. Why therefore should a limited number of residents feel they are able to throw their rubbish and recycling out whenever they feel like it. Street dumping of larger items is pretty much always at night under cover of darkness, is covert and illegal – there is no defendable justification for it.

    • FitzWest admin

      Thanks Chris. All good points on this complicated issue.