Bracknell’s Beautiful Parks and the Litter! followup

I have been in contact with Windsor & Maidenhead Council Street Care Team. The council operate the Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) by:

The Council originally employed two Litter Enforcement Officers on 6-month temporary contracts.

Other Council staff were being trained to issue litter Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN), including Parking Wardens and Community Wardens.

The income from litter fixed penalty notices supplemented the officers, but did not cover all of the costs of employing them.


Adopt-a-Street was introduced around the same time. This has about 16 volunteered for the scheme to date, and a school. When any resident volunteers they are provided with health and safety training and provided with equipment that includes litter pickers, hi visibility jackets, gloves and sacks.

The scheme was advertised on the councils website and widely publicised in various publications as well as receiving press coverage, an example from the Windsor & Maidenhead Observer here.

The current scheme with regards to wardens appears to be very efficient as this gives a more flexible council workforce. It’s not a bad thing that the scheme is not fully funded by the FPN as this gives the wardens some discrepancy. There is a cost to this scheme although as its part funded it not as expensive as it could be. There could also be a saving made on reduced costs of picking up litter as street cleaning could become quicker.

It would be a good idea to adopt the warden scheme in Bracknell as having a presence reminds people that droppings litter is not allowed.

The Adopt-a-street scheme is in principal a good idea if you can get enough people interested. Although if 16 people are occupying 16 streets and are picking up litter on a regular basis then that is very worth while. It would be better if all schools can be involved. Perhaps a warden can visit a school and inform the pupils about the scheme. There is also no harm in educating kids as to why littering is wrong. For this to be more worthwhile however more people would be required.

I would like to suggest A clean the town day which could be introduced annually were people are encouraged to go around our local towns on mass (I know this is a bit of a dream but why not). I will be suggesting these ideas to the Bracknell Forest Council.