As part of our drive to bring back a sense of pride in our place, our Cleaner, Greener, Safer campaign focuses on the real issues that matter to YOU. We truly love the area that we live in and know that you do too. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole are special places, both rural and urban, spanning countryside and coast and we want everyone to be proud to live, work and relax here.

Portfolio-Holders alongside lead-councillors are working with officers, partners and stakeholders to discuss priorities and plans to support an enhanced response and bring forward initiatives that will maximise on the positivity and pride that we see across our conurbation, concentrating on the first steps towards making this amazing place even more special, creating a cleaner, greener, safer place for everyone.

Cleaner

We’ve listened to what you’re saying and are prioritising real action on the streets across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, tackling the issues that we know are important to you. A total £453,000 will be invested into street cleansing, including a new litter bin strategy, and deploying additional street cleansing teams. This will cover bin replacements, sign cleaning, weed control and furniture painting across the three town centres.

 

Through our ‘Cleaner’ initiative, we have started to level up some crucial frontline services in Christchurch to the same standards as those experienced in Bournemouth and Poole. Up until April 2020, Christchurch’s waste and recycling was undertaken by the Dorset Waste Partnership at Dorset Council. We took it on in the middle of the pandemic, when priority was placed on more urgent tasks. Now Christchurch will see an improved street cleansing service, which includes a new pavement sweeper alongside staff dedicated to pavement cleaning, tackling litter, dealing with fly tipping, and carrying out winter gully cleaning to reduce incidents of flooding.

Greener

We planted over 10,000 trees across our conurbation last year. This not only helps combat the climate and ecological emergency, but it also falls under our ‘Greener’ declaration.

We realise that green initiatives matter to you and we’re making it happen. Trees can have a positive impact on our wellbeing, helping us to feel a sense of calm in our lives and keeping us connected to nature, which has never been more important after the last couple of years we’ve all had.

In response to our declaration of a climate and ecological emergency, we are continuing to trial several changes to the way some green spaces across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole are managed. These changes will help us to develop policies and procedures that are sustainable, help tackle climate change and improve conditions for wildlife whilst ensuring areas of importance are kept safe and tidy as part of our grass cutting strategy. Find out more about our meadows and grass cutting here. 

Safer

We’re committed to keeping you safe.

One of the important issues that matter you to is anti-social behaviour, so we will be putting a big emphasis on dealing with matters around this.

This year, £100,000 is being invested to further support CCTV in urban areas, with an additional £60,000 for increased CCTV monitoring. We have also invested a further £500,000 in additional Community Safety Officers (CSAS) resources to provide focus on tackling anti-social behaviour across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole until April 2023.

We want you to feel safe where you live and increased funding to be spent on these projects will help with our Safer initiative. This year, £100,000 will be invested in a Safer Improvement Fund that will look at improvements to make the public realm safer.

What YOU can do to help #LetsBeProud

Does your road need sweeping or drains cleared of leaves? Perhaps you’ve seen some flytipping that needs clearing up? Or is there some graffiti on council property that you would like removed?

We're asking residents to Report It to us online. We will then assess each request that comes in and act on it where we can. Our aim for this year is to speed up response times to issues identified by inspectors and reports from the public.

We are incredibly keen to build our community feel after a tough two years in the pandemic. That’s why we’re planning some community action days and encouraging you to get involved where you can to create a Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole that we’re all proud of.

 

See our March 2022 budget update here.