LITTER collection and grass cutting services are under review with councillors being told the authority will have to think creatively when it comes to looking after more than 16,000 grass plots and almost 2,000 litter bins in the borough.
Neighbourhood Services is tasked with keeping Barnsley looking clean, tidy and maintained. It costs the council about £2.2m each year.
The service - which includes grounds maintenance, litter collection, public rights of way and tree maintenance - is being reviewed as part of the council’s purse tightening exercise in response to further government cuts.
More than 100 people are employed by the service but it is not yet known whether the review will lead to any job losses.
Councillors who sit on the overview and scrutiny board were given a presentation by Rachel Tyas, head of transformation at the council for environment and transport services.
She said the idea is to make Neighbourhood Services more responsive as current working patterns are over five days and it needs to reflect the ‘seven day demands’ on the service. She also said the physical demand of the work is impacting on the productivity of some ageing staff.
She said the volume of assets the council looks after has evolved over the decades and now has more than 16,000 grass plots to look after - 618 on ‘primary gateways’.
Paul Castle, the council’s service director for environment and transport, said the overall aim of the review is service improvement.
When asked about the emptying and removal of litter bins by Coun Sarah Tattersall, and whether it would be possible to replace smaller bins with larger ones so they don’t have to be emptied as often, he said the council simply does not have the cash.
It may look at taking out some bins in areas where they are not used.
Mr Castle also told councillors he hadn’t realised the sheer volume of grass plots the council has to maintain.
“The big surprise for me was how many plots of grass we are talking about. Some may say I should know how many but I didn’t appreciate there was more than 16,000,” he said. “We have to look at different ways these plots can be put to use.”
Council boss Matt Gladstone said there may be other creative options that can be considered for some of those plots, depending on location and size.
He said: “One roundabout for example has about 16 pieces of grass and we can design that out (which means they no longer have to be maintained).
“Some may be suitable for housing sites for infill.
“There is demand for more allotments and some could be converted and we need to look creatively and ask do we still need 16,00 pieces of grass going forward?”
Any changes to the way the service operates are expected to be made in April and put in place in the 12 months following that date.
