Article From the chair, November 2026 - 'I pay my council tax..'

When we are out and about litter picking, now and then we hear people say 'I pay my council tax, why do you do this, the council are responsible'. Funnily enough we also happen to pay council tax.

On this issue the main point to make is that we don’t just repetitively do what the council street care team would do.  We do have strong opinions that services should be properly provided and we are most definitely not looking to become a volunteer based outsource for Council services.

Many of the areas we look to focus on and help tidy at are not council owned or council responsibility, and there are many of them: street adjacent verges, fencing and bushes; on access roads and alleyways, business premises and shop fronts; shopping centre areas, around flats, car parks, hospital grounds, clinics and surgery grounds; Network Rail land, Environment Agency land, church land, hotels, the courts, the Police Station,.. etc etc etc.

Our approach has been to help to clear these spots to make the whole of the public realm better.  And linking it all together with Havering street care; as soon as the wind blows, this litter also blows around and also back on to roads, pavements and streets, then becoming a council ‘problem’ again.

In terms of these areas the council don’t have responsibility for we look to act.  Where we can we identify the responsible parties for areas in a poor state and seek to build links and encourage those parties to take responsibility to keep things clean.  We’ve seen really some good examples of that working.

When things look better it is much easier to keep them in good order.

Thanks for reading!
Rob and Inga