Leeds City Council is set to roll out improvements to bin yards across the city following a successful pilot in the Recreations area of Holbeck.
A report to the Council’s Executive Board next week recommends spending £247,500 on improving 45 yards across the city. If these are as successful as those in Holbeck the programme will continue to tackle the 696 problem bin yards identified in the report.
Anyone who’s lived in Holbeck or Beeston Hill will be familiar with the problems of bin yards – the former toilet blocks for back-to-back houses. The space is shared between up to eight households to manage and is often a magnet for fly tipping.
Various solutions have been tried over the years from periodic clearing to reducing the wall heights and installing railings and gates, but none of these have worked long term.
As we reported in August 2016, a new initiative was trialled as part of the intensive ‘Neighbourhood Approach’ programme being pursued in the Recreations area of Holbeck. This has involved securing the yards, moving the walls back and providing communal waste and recycling bins secured in frames. The report states that “The approach has delivered real improvements in the quality of the local environment.”
The approach tackles two problems: removing space that can be used to dump and solving the problem of wheelie bins having to be left in shared space, or more often left on the pavement.
Leeds City Council’s Executive Board meets on Wednesday 21 March 2018, you can read the full report here.
Good news.
Of course making it harder to miss use bin yards is only one step – enforcement of those ignoring the rules and tipping is still key. But making it harder to break the rules in the first place and supporting the streets with these yards on them is a great step.
Not before time the bin yards of Leeds are finally been dealt with but not quick enought is there a break down of which streets will be done in what order because I bet this side of beeston namely the barkly won’t be top of the list and there have been a disgrace for years and I’m sick of complaining but I could be wrong
I’m currently waiting for mine to be cleared after fly tipping and was reported last November
We can’t even get in ours