This section of the website deals with the Council's responsibilities concerning the maintenance of streets. You will find links to pages where you can find more information and report problems.

Report a problem

We will keep your streets clean and tidy in doing this we will;

• Clean the Town Centre and Old Town retail areas between the hours of 06.30 and 20.hrs each weekday
• We will issue fixed penalty notices for litter to discourage littering where appropriate
• We will remove abandoned vehicles within 24 hrs of the Council being satisfied that they are abandoned
• We will clean local retail areas at least once daily and more if necessary to keep a clean and tidy environment
• We will empty litter bins daily if necessary
• We will clear fly tipping on land we are responsible for within 2 working days
• We will prosecute persons who carryout or permit fly tipping to the best of our ability
• We will provide a 24hr emergency service for grave environmental pollution or risks to human health
• We will focus our resources in one area  for one day each month for an in depth clean and work jointly with others to eliminate anti social behaviour
• We will clean off obscene or abusive graffiti applied to your home with 24 hours of report free of charge
• We will also remove other graffiti from your home within a reasonable period, free of charge
• We will continue to operate agreements with utilities and similar undertaking to remove graffiti from roadside cabinets
• We will provide an email address to allow direct reporting of graffiti
• We will monitor graffiti and tackle hot spots and liaise with the Police and other Agencies
• We will provide advice on designing out graffiti and preventive techniques for existing building owners

What we do and what you can do to help.

This is a very important service to the community and the Council.   Litter can be dangerous as well as unsightly.  Young children and wildlife are particularly vulnerable to litter that is thrown down that perhaps might contain residual foodstuffs or dangerous medicines.

Everyone is agreed that litter is unsightly and most people always use the litter bins provided or take their litter home with them. It is the inconsiderate minority that are causing such a negative impact on our environment.

Presently, this Council spends nearly 2 million pounds per year keeping your streets clean and removing fly tipping.  3000 tonnes of litter is dropped or tipped every year which is equal to 36 kilogrammes per household. This money could be spent on more positive projects and services in all the other important Council services.  

Recently new powers have enabled this Council to take stronger action against those people who pollute our environment.  If you drop litter you are liable to a fixed penalty notice of £80.00.  If you do not pay the notice then you will be prosecuted in the Magistrate’s Court where upon conviction your fine can be as high as £2,500.00 and you will have a criminal record.  These are serious penalties yet still people drop litter!

For information on how SBC enforces environmental crime, please view our enforcement policy.

Education is clearly an important tool and we work with the national campaigning organisations targeting litter and littering.  Specialist officers are available to visit schools in the borough and other interested groups to talk about litter and encourage better citizenship.  Details on how to access a presentation is given at the end of this page.

Useful information for teachers and other groups is contained on the Encams site (www.encams.org)

School children by and large support a clean and tidy environment; school teachers are encouraged to contact us also so that a presentation can be given.  This could perhaps be combined with an anti-graffiti message or important information regarding recycling and waste minimisation.   

Dumping large amounts of litter is called fly tipping.  Please visit our separate web page regarding this environmental crime.  Last year we removed around 1664 separate instances of fly tipping at a cost of over £80,000.00.  Again this is money that could be spent improving your services.  

We hold regular clean up days under the banner “Safe & Clean” when we focus our efforts on a  particular area and embrace other problems simultaneously such as dog fouling, noise and graffiti.

Our commitment to you in respect of keeping your streets clean is to clean them in accordance with the national code of practice for street cleaning.

We seek a higher standard in the Town Centre and the Old Town retail area and cleaning is carried out form 06.30 in the morning until 20.00 at night each weekday.

In the Town Centre there are 46 litterbins and these are emptied continuously during the day.  This is a large number of receptacles but even then you will find that litter is present on the ground.  Several of the fast food restaurants have informal agreements with the Council for keeping areas near their shop clean and those premises that offer outdoor café facilities are also obliged to maintain a litter free environment within the perimeter of their barriers.  There needs to be a careful blend between a cosmopolitan café society and clean and tidy streets and we are constantly seeking from both visitors to the Town Centre and the businesses within the centre itself an improved performance on environmental matters.

Thank you for reading all that Swindon Borough Council is doing to keep your town clean and tidy.  Please contact the Swindon Commercial Services Call Centre 463463 if you wish to report a need for street cleaning or you have witnessed fly tipping.  You can also report a problem of littering online,

Alternatively you can email customerservices@swindon.gov.uk please remember to give as much detail as possible regarding the problem and location.

Any concerns regarding street cleaning will be addressed within 2 working days and any fly tipping reported will be removed also within 2 working days unless there is a prospect of retrieving from the material dumped evidence that can lead to the prosecution of the person who carried out the offence.

We can only keep Swindon clean and tidy with your co-operation and support and if you have any general views in respect of street cleaning please pass them on to the Waste Manager via the direct link.

Thank you for your support for your local environment.