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from the highway to safe storage any vehicles which appear to be abandoned and to dispose of
these when all efforts to establish ownership have failed. The removal of these vehicles, the
majority of which are derelict and have been dumped by persons unknown, is now carried out by
contract with a reliable car breaking firm and they are stored on a site loaned to the Contractor
by the Council until disposal authority is received from the Police. The vehicles are then broken
up and disposed of by the same Contractor on payment by the Council of £2.10.0d. per vehicle.
A local resident who gives written authority for the removal of his vehicle which is no longer
roadworthy can have this taken away and disposed of free of charge to himself and to the Council,
the Contractor covering his expenses by the scrap value of the vehicle which in such cases is
normally complete.
Street Sweeping
It should first be stated that it is becoming increasingly difficult to deal with the public
cleansing of highways satisfactorily for three main reasons — firstly, the astonishing increase
in light litter and the dropping of this in the street despite the provisions of the Litter Act, 1958;
secondly, because of difficulties caused by the growth of motor parking on the highway; and
thi rdly, because of the reluctance of younger active men to enter this type of employment despite
the offer of bonus incentives and attempts to introduce mechanical appliances to make the
work more attractive.
The service has recently been completely reorganised following a work study examination
and now operates on the following basis:—
Manual Sweeping
The Borough is divided into 42 beats of which exactly half are three-men team beats
and the remainder are worked by one man only in each case. The three-men teams are equipped
with an electrically powered pedestrian operated truck of sufficient capacity for a normal day's
work (2 cubic yards) and costing approximately £580. The one-man units have a simple hand
truck. The teams are based on sub-depots in the Borough and their predetermined sweeping beats
are related to these so that the greatest number of sweeping miles are obtained. There are approximately
130 miles of road in the Borough.
Mechanical Sweeping.
Unfortunatel y, mechanical sweeping does not provide the whole answer to labour problems
because the parked vehicle very materially lowers the efficiency of mechanical sweepers.
There are objections to their use at night on noise grounds and night routes have to be carefully
selected and are necessarily confined to main roads.
Attention has also been given to the possible use of mechanical sweeping on footways
and a number of machines tried out. The greatest need for them is in shopping areas where the
denser pedestrian usage does not make their use easy without some risk. Progress is being made
in the development of footpath sweepers and the Council will avail itself of any machine which
can achieve a satisfactory result in the conditions under which it must work.
Street Markets.
There are in the Borough a number of street markets mainly catering for the sale of vegetables,
fruit and flowers, but also other items from stalls. The largest of these markets is in
North End Road which contains some 91 stalls but the others are materially smaller and do not
present so great a cleansing problem. Large trailers are provided for the reception of refuse from
the market, three being located in side roads off North End Road. These are progressively filled
during the day and removed at night for emptying except on Fridays and Saturdays, an intermediate
emptying during these days being often necessary because of heavier trading.
At the end of the day there is always a quantity of litter left in the market area and
special arrangements are made to remove this with a small gang and a Dennis "Paxit" vehicle.
Refuse Disposal
Under the London Government Act, 1963, the final disposal of refuse became a function
of the Greater London Council, but this Council has undertaken to continue to carry out this work
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