As Covid regulations ease NE1 is stepping up its efforts to make sure Newcastle is looking its best, ready to deliver a 5-star welcome for people returning to the city. Environmental cleanliness and getting the basics right have always been central to our remit. We know Newcastle can look great, but we are constantly striving to make it look even better and are focusing tremendous effort on the less glamorous parts of city centre management.
We have a small but dedicated Street Ranger and rapidresponse Clean Team at NE1 who work tirelessly to keep the city looking its best, as well as providing an ‘on the ground’ presence to help Newcastle, its residents and visitors feel safe and secure. Our Clean Team are well known and respected by businesses and can be relied upon to be up cleaning the city before it comes to life each morning, plugging the gaps in Newcastle’s street cleaning provision. Each year, the team removes almost 8,000 black binbags of litter from the city’s streets and conducts over 5,000 rapid response call outs, whilst the Street Rangers, in their familiar blue jackets, provide a street patrol and report over 5,000 jobs to the Police and City Council.
The work of our Ranger and Clean Teams took on renewed vigour recently when we appointed two new contractors. When choosing who to run these services we made the conscious decision to keep the providers local. Both companies were selected for their expertise in their respective fields, ISIS in environmental services and Phoenix in security. The companies are as passionate about Newcastle as we are, and being smaller, local companies are adaptable and flexible with strong local knowledge and regional pride, which fits seamlessly with NE1 and our working practices, this benefits the city enormously.
Appointing these contractors has also freed us to focus on wider city centre issues and work more closely, in partnership with Northumbria Police and Newcastle City Council which is already having positive results.
We know it is difficult to get it right all of the time and change won’t happen overnight, especially as we all operate within extremely tight budgets, but by working together we can make the most of our resources. We all have a part to play in resolving city centre issues and delivering improvements.
In addition to the ‘on-the ground’ presence, the NE1 Operations Team continues to work strategically to tackle on street problems and find solutions that can be rolled out across the city, a recent example of this is in waste management. The less than glamorous world of refuse collection and on-street bins is a recurring problem for businesses and the wider public in Newcastle. Large commercial bins on streets and in passageways is not just an unsightly eyesore, but also attract anti-social behaviour and can obstruct trading for surrounding businesses. Resolving the problem isn’t always straightforward and often requires the cooperation of multiple businesses. We have had a number of notable successes in this area, all with major transformational results.
Starting with High Friars Lane near the Tyneside Cinema. We worked with local businesses to remove the bins from the alley, relocating them to a secure store. This allowed the Tyneside to install a beautiful, fairy-lit overhead canopy covering the lane and the entrance to the cinema, as well as creating an outside dining area with tables and chairs replacing the unsightly bins.
Using our knowledge of what worked on High Friars Lane, we applied the same approach to High Bridge. The area was dogged by rubbish with at least 10 calls to NE1’s Clean Team each week. Working with local businesses and the Council, we transformed the area, rationalising refuse collection and waste management cutting the number of bins enormously, from 47 down to 10. We negotiated with businesses to share the remaining bins and arranged a daily refuse collection. By encouraging businesses to share waste contracts, we cut costs, improved recycling and reduced the carbon footprint with fewer bin collections, and fewer bins meant storage could be arranged off the street.
We have achieved similar success again recently with Dean Street car park, one of the busiest in the city centre. The entrance to the car park used to be a major eyesore and waste management catastrophe, with overflowing bins and littering on the streets. Now the car park area has been cleared and lighting improved, we are even hoping to create an art installation to further revamp the area.
It takes time and patience to deliver these projects and requires a lot of skilful negotiation, but everyone benefits from improved waste management, with reduced business costs, increased recycling, and fewer bins on the streets. We are trying to put together a long-term vision for the whole city which will, hopefully, shape the city’s future waste management policy. It is all too easy to underestimate and overlook the importance of getting the basics right believing that it is someone else’s job. But it is everyone’s job to keep the city tidy. We want to encourage everyone to take pride in keeping the city clean and tidy, starting with the Great British Spring Clean 2022 from Friday 25 March to Sunday 10 April.
Let’s roll up our sleeves to spruce up the city. We can’t solve all the city’s problems overnight, but we can work together to get the basics right. We hope that in 2022 we move one step closer to achieving this and encourage everyone to play their part.
For details of the Great British Spring Clean please contact me at tariq.albassam@newcastlene1ltd.com www.newcastlene1ltd.com
