I know there have been several threads on this forum recently about the state of our high streets - so I wanted to share a quick update on some of the work that the Council has been doing to tackle these challenges, and to encourage everyone here to submit responses to the consultation that has just been launched.
You may be aware of the “Love Lewisham” campaign that our new Mayor launched shortly after taking office. The first stage of this campaign has focused primarily on anti-fly-tipping, using a combination of increased enforcement activity and targeted beautification projects. The data suggests that we have made a tangible difference here on the prevalence of fly-tipping in the borough, and the average response time, but there’s obviously still a lot more we need to do.
Now, we’re expanding the Love Lewisham campaign to focus on the issue of high street cleanliness. Over the past few months, council officers have been doing some direct engagement with local businesses and residents living above shops and near busy shopping areas to better understand the challenges they face, and the root causes of those challenges.
We are now looking at a range of options to address these issues, potentially including:
Timed rubbish and recycling collections in busy shopping areas (i.e., businesses would have a fixed slot in which to leave their bags out)
Covered bin and bag storage units in busy shopping areas
Stronger action against businesses that repeatedly break rubbish and recycling rules
Improvements to rubbish and recycling services for residents living above shops
Additional litter bins where they are needed
To help us determine how to prioritise these different options, we’ve launched a new consultation that will run until 12 January 2027. All Lewisham residents are welcome to submit responses and share their views. Here’s a link: Love Your High Streets - Lewisham Council - Citizen Space
I should also specify, to avoid confusion, that this consultation relates specifically to high street waste management, not waste collection on residential streets. The points around timed collections, for example, relate only to businesses who leave loose bags on the street for collection - not for households that have standing wheely bins.
The more responses we receive to the consultation, the more effectively we’ll be able to target resources at this initiative - so please do find 10 minutes to fill it in if you can. If you have any questions on the consultation or our strategy here, do feel free to let me know.
This looks great - but a lot of the comments on threads here related to the general dirtiness of the pavement Forest Hill’s shopping streets (particularly London Road) and many people would love to see these pressure washed or cleaned once in a while. Will that be included in this consultation?
I was about to say the same as @Foresthillfan - this is something that has come up many times.
Making the streets themselves cleaner might encourage better use of them (for waste management, but also generally) and attract more visitors.
Could the council make some kind of effort, and then encourage businesses and residents to make a localised effort to keep it clean … maybe with some kind of recognition for the effort (“Lewisham’s tidiest high street” awards??)
As I see it the main fly tipping issues come NOT from buisinesses on our high street but from individuals in and outside our area using certain spots to dump their waste OFTEN REPEATEDLY.
Putting large covered bins and bag storage areas in busy shopping areas will make the area look WORSE..and no doubt encourage more fly-tipping by all and sundry.
A case in point is the electrical (and maybe textile at that site too?)recycling bins on Sydenham Hill where lots of junk just gets dumped around the bins..from car seats to oil cans.
The ‘food recycling bins’ in main streets was a good idea but ones that I’ve seen were often overflowing with general litter.
that’s a good point about fly-tipping around electrical/other material-specific recycling bins. Yesterday I took a photo of the non-electrical rubbish piled up around the electrical equipment recycling bin at the bottom of Church Rise, where it meets Westbourne Drive. I haven’t been back today, but that same photo could have been taken any day of any week. People are just thick/illiterate/lazy/selfish, more so it seems in Lewisham than Southwark! Obviously, this can’t really be true, so I would like Fergus and his fellow councillors and officers to ask other councils that don’t appear to suffer from this degree of dirtiness and fly-tipping, what are they doing? And then do more of that in Lewisham.
But I will try to look carefully at how the arrangements for disposal by high street businesses work here compared with other boroughs e.g. Lordship Lane - very busy, many shopfronts and deliveries to work around. Can’t say I’ve noticed piles of rubbish waiting for collection, but I will look carefully and respond to the consultation.
Kirkdale High Street (an area of special local character) is a mixture of lovely shops doing amazing things and some pretty sad shopfronts / boarded up buildings and rubbish that drag their enterprise down. I’ve tried every route available to complain about the scaffolding that seems to have been up for years there now. It makes the pavement inaccessible and affects the aesthetics of the high street a lot. I’ve had no response to any council channel I used to report this (including a direct response to the appeal for empty residential properties from the Council on instagram). Any chance someone over there could look into this?
I think part of the answer has to do with the recycling and dump facilities in Lewisham, which are dreadful. The Lewisham dump is very near southwark’s and the contrast couldn’t be greater. The Southwark dump is a huge, purpose-built recycling facility where you can dispose of most types of household waste and there are very few exclusions. When I last rocked up to Lewisham dump, which looks like a shanty town by comparison, I was treated with hostility by the staff and met with a long and confusing list of things they wouldn’t take. Including plasterboard (not a problem at Southwark!)
My two experiences at Lewisham dump were so bad that now, on the rare occasions I need to use the dump, my Dad (a Peckham native) kindly drives me to the Southwark dump.
I agree that fly tipping is terrible in Lewisham, some of which is because people are selfish / lazy / fly-by-night builders etc, but I also think this is a structural problem about waste facilities in the borough. Ellie Reeves recently wrote to our street informing us that the council had lowered the cost of disposing of household items (washing machines etc), but it doesn’t seem to have made much difference.
They need more local tips. People who do not have cars or extra cash need somewhere to dispose of rubbish, that they can walk to. We used to have recycling banks at Sainsbury’s and, while they did attract waste outside the banks, they just needed to be tidied and emptied more regularly and monitored with cctv. Community skips offer a temporary solution, but having more local centres would be a better long term solution. There are many spaces in car parks in leisure centres, such as Bellingham and Downham, and we have an empty leisure centre car park (the bridge) in ‘Lower Sydenham’. All we are talking about is some containers and staff and hopefully savings will be made in not having to collect so much stuff from the streets.
