Partnerships key to Cleaner Greener Streets
Jacqui Kennedy, Acting Strategic Director for Place at Birmingham City Council, talks about the importance of partnership working to keep the city looking as good as possible…
Hopefully over the last few months you’ve seen some of our promotional activity to showcase the excellent work being done in partnership with communities, by businesses, other organisations and individual citizens to help deliver one of the top priorities for Birmingham – cleaner greener streets.
Jacqui Kennedy - Acting Strategic Director of Place
Day-in and day-out some truly inspirational things are being done, with the council playing an enabling role, rather than delivering the services directly themselves.
In this blog, I’d like to take an opportunity to mention just a few of the many things going on in the city.
At the grassroots, almost every day of the week sees a community group, local organisation, schools or even individuals carrying out litter picks in their neighbourhood. They are setting an example by playing their part and exhibiting very clearly the ethos of Love Your Street, one of the pillars of our Cleaner Greener Streets campaign.
Another great initiative is also about to launch in partnership with behaviour change charity Hubub. Complementing our own Cleaner Greener Streets campaign, the city centre scheme is based on one trialled elsewhere including some of the highest footfall areas of London, using innovative and interactive techniques to get people thinking about litter on our streets.
This is probably a blog in its own right! With that in mind, I won’t say anymore at this stage, as there’ll be plenty to talk about when the project launches in partnership with some major High Street names and environmental firms later this month.
Mindful of the criticism that the city centre gets an unfair share of resources, we are also looking at how to address issues further afield by working on voluntary codes for tackling litter with all fast food franchisees in the city.
These are all exactly the sorts of things we need citizens and businesses with a presence in the city to do if we are to meet our long term goals to send absolutely no waste to landfill and to increase our recycling rate to 70 per cent (from a current position under 30 per cent) by 2030.
Throughout June, we’ll be doing lots to promote the genuine and effective partnerships we are a part of on this issue. Keep a look out online for news and updates by visiting this website or following the hashtag
