A survey carried out by Keep Britain Tidy, an independent environmental charity, comparing the quality of street cleansing in 2024 and 2025 has shown a marked improvement in street cleansing standards in the Borough, with Bexley performing better than the national survey and the London benchmark for litter, flyposting and graffiti.
The elements assessed were litter, detritus, flyposting, graffiti, fly-tipping and weed growth and the grading system used the same Local Environmental Quality (LEQ) principles as the Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse.
The wards that were inspected were selected by Keep Britain Tidy with no influence from the Council or their contractor Countrystyle and the selection process was based on industry best practice.
Bexley’s Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, Cllr Richard Diment, said:
“It’s good to see that our hard work and investment to improve standards of cleanliness in the Borough is paying off and that this is recognised by an independent expert Keep Britain Tidy.
Keeping Bexley clean and green is a priority. We’ve installed an additional 285 new bins in the borough and improved over 350 litter bins. We take a zero-tolerance approach to fly-tipping and littering and anyone seen committing these offences will be fined.”
The wards looked at in 2024 were Blacken & Lamorbey, Falconwood & Welling, Barnehurst, Northumberland Heath and Slade Green & Northend. The five wards that were selected for this year’s survey (2025) were Crook Log, Longlands, Sidcup, St Mary’s & St James and Thamesmead East.
In 2024, Bexley was performing better on litter than the national benchmark but worse than the London benchmark. The scores for both flyposting and graffiti were better than the London benchmark but worse than the national benchmark. Detritus was performing worse than the London benchmark but slightly better than the national benchmark.
In the 2025 Keep Britain Tidy survey, all elements apart from detritus produced much better results than the previous year’s survey. Bexley was better than the national survey for litter, flyposting and graffiti and worse for detritus and fly-tipping. It was better than the London benchmark in all elements apart from detritus.
Keep Britain Tidy noted that issues were identified in some wards that were not Bexley Council’s responsibility to maintain but were included in the survey. For example, they observed that graffiti that could be seen from one Bexley ward was actually the responsibility of another local authority. The surveyors also made observations of fly tipping on private land and of overflowing commercial bins that were not the Council’s responsibility to clear. However, Bexley Council referred the issues to the relevant third parties for action.
You can report fly-tipping or littering by visiting the Bexley Fix My Street reporting tool.