Street Cleansing process

• Residential Street Cleansing - 3 weekly
• Major Shopping Areas (Bexleyheath, Sidcup, Welling & Erith Town Centres) - continuous daily presence
• Local Shopping Areas - 2 to 6 times per week depending on the classification
• Alleyways and Footpaths - 3 weekly
• Car Parks - weekly
• Weed Spraying - 3 applications per year (April to September )
• High-Speed Roads (A2, A20, Bronze Age Way, Eastern Way, Thames Road, North Cray Road and North End Road ) - Cleansed under full lane closures once per year with 3 additional rolling road closures for A2 and A20

Cleansing Standards

The cleansing of the public highway is done predominantly using mechanical methods with manual intervention. Routine cleansing is not carried out on unadopted/private roads.

Areas should be cleansed to a good standard at the time of cleansing visit however in busy areas litter may appear soon after cleansing. This means that the areas should be cleared from litter and detritus after the regular sweep. Unfortunately, deterioration in cleansing standards can be due to adverse weather conditions, high winds etc.

Some roads in the borough are heavily parked with cars which can prove challenging for cleansing operations. Whilst all efforts will be made to cleanse the roads to a good standard, this may not always be achievable on every attendance because of vehicles parking very close to the kerb.

Cleansing standard will naturally deteriorate between cleansing visits and we would not normally reattend outside the scheduled cleansing frequency.

View our street cleansing programme

High Speed Road Cleansing Schedule 2026

• 3 April - A2 / A20 Rolling Road Closure
• 10 April - A20 Lane 1s
• 1 May - Eastern Way Lane 1s
• 15 May - Eastern Way Lane 2s
• 22 May - A2 Danson to Dartford Lane 3s London and Kent Bound
• 5 June - Bronze Age Way Lane 1s and 2s
• 19 June - A20 Lane 2s
• 22 June - Thames Road
• 3 July - A2 Lane 1s Kent bound
• 17 July - A2 Lane 1s London bound
• 24 July - A2 Falconwood to Danson Lane 3s London and Kent bound
• 14 August - North Cray Road
• 11 September - Northend Road, South Road, Queens Road
• 16 October - A2 / A20 Rolling Road Closure
• 18 December - A2 / A20 Rolling Road Closure
• 15 January 2027 - A2 / A20 Rolling Road Closure

Additional Ad Hoc and Emergency Street Cleansing

Street cleansing issues reported via FixMyStreet and other channels will be assessed and allocated ad hoc or Emergency Street Cleansing resources at the discretion of the relevant council officers. Residents should note that additional cleansing resources will be allocated according to need and may not be assigned if scheduled cleansing is due to be carried out in the near future.

As a guide residents can expect issues to be resolved in the following timeframe (timeframes are subject to levels of demand on this service):

• 1 hour - High risk to the public (Glass, Syringes, Blood, Dead Animals, Fouling, Bodily Fluids, Oil Spillage)*
• 3 hours - Medium risk cleansing issues in high footfall areas
• 6 hours - Medium risk cleansing issues in lower footfall areas
• 24 hours – Lower risk cleansing issues
• 1 week - Low risk cleansing issues or cleansing issues that may require more time or resources that would otherwise have an impact on clearance of higher risk cleansing issues.

*Asbestos and Large Scale Flytips are deal with by a specialist 3rd party contractor and subject to resource availability however aim to be resolved within 24 hours if reported during normal office hours.