Don’t Trash Oldham: Clean-up campaign nominated for top award

Oldham Council’s boroughwide clean up and enforcement campaign has been shortlisted in the ‘Environmental Services’ category for 2022.

The annual awards highlight how local authorities are working to improve communities for their residents.

Don’t Trash Oldham was launched with the aim of cleaning and tidying up every ward in the borough.

On the doorstep, over social media and via feedback to staff residents are telling us the initiative is making a positive impact.

In the first six months of the campaign our staff:

• cleared up more than 144 tonnes of litter, rubbish, fly-tipping and overgrown shrubs
• cleaned 1,755 streets and 292 alleys
• knocked on more than 18,000 doors letting people know about the campaign
• handed out 301 fines to those who think it’s ok to leave rubbish where they want.

This month our teams are busy cleaning up South Chadderton and Werneth.

Councillor Arooj Shah, Leader of Oldham Council, said: “When I became council leader, I prioritised putting more staff and funding into cleaning up our borough and taking action against those who treat it like a tip.

“I did this because residents told me, and my fellow councillors, that they wanted us to do it.

“When we started Don’t Trash Oldham our main aim was to improve the lives of residents and their communities – and we are doing that. We didn’t do it to win awards.

“All this is thanks to the great work our teams, councillors and residents, who have worked tirelessly on the campaign. It’s been such a success that we are investing £1m in it this financial year.

Councillor Amanda Chadderton, Deputy Leader of Oldham Council and Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, said: “To be shortlisted is an achievement in itself, considering the number of councils that will have entered. The LGC have recognised that we are doing something right, which is other councils have been in touch and want to follow our lead with similar campaigns of their own

“You’ll always get people criticising what we are doing – we know we can’t stop fly-tipping and littering – but thanks to what we are doing Oldham is far cleaner place than it was what we’ve done but we have genuinely improved the areas we’ve cleaned up already.”

The results will be announced in July.