Acton smartens up its act

Agencies join forces for The London Clean Up

The London Clean-Up, a campaign that spans the capital, got off to a environmentally friendly start in Acton this week with a tree planting ceremony.

The London Clean-Up campaign not only aims to clean up Acton's streets from litter (which London wide costs taxpayers over £100m per year), but also to reduce the amount of crime and anti-social behaviour that often makes residents feel intimidated and fearful about crime.

The three day Acton project is a multi-agency event which sees the Council and Police working in close partnership with a number of other agencies and local community groups including Action Acton and Churchfield Road Traders Association.

Around 70 people, of whom more than half are Police personnel, will be donning bright yellow jackets on Tuesday 7th, Wednesday 8th and Thursday 9th of March and getting to grips with local environmental, transport, housing, alcohol and drug misuse and young people.

Although London Clean-Up was launched on 7th March 2006, Keith Townsend of Ealing Council explained that a great deal of what is happening in Acton over the course of this week is building on existing projects.  "These three days are not a gimmick, they are meant as a continuation of work that has already begun.  What the London Clean-Up campaign has meant better co-ordination of existing resources ensuring that we work more effectively and share best practice."

Echoing these sentiments, Susan Parsonage, head of envirocrime prevention for Ealing, said "We are aiming to imbed the principles of partnership working to bring about sustainability of these action days.  This is not a one-off, we will be organising clean-up days regularly and will be revisiting areas and dealing with the issues raised from previous events."

Results from previous clean-up campaigns in West Ealing and Ealing Broadway produced some good results over a two day period and included:

• Twenty abandoned / two No Tax Disc shown vehicles removed
• Over £450 of commercial waste arrears payments collected
• Over 19 Tonnes of dumped rubbish removed
• Over 200 cigarette butt and chewing gum pouches distributed
• One arrest for theft of motor vehicle and drugs possession
• Twenty Five letters issued to commercial premises over illegal A Boards
  

Measures taken across Acton over the three days will include tree planting, graffiti and flytipping removal, highway repairs, Police patrols on buses, DVLA stop and grab of untaxed cars, removal of abandoned vehicles, Smartwater property marking in high risk burglary areas, outreach working for drug and alcohol misuse and truancy patrols.

March 8, 2006