Street cleaning

Keeping Islington’s streets clear and safe this autumn 

As the leaves begin to fall, Islington Council is stepping up its efforts to keep our streets clean, safe, and accessible for everyone.

With over 40,000 trees across the borough, autumn creates specific challenges for our street cleaning teams. That’s why have a dedicated borough-wide leaf clearing programme, focusing on the areas most affected by seasonal leaf-fall.

What we’re doing: 

• Daily cleans of main roads and high streets. 
• Dedicated neighbourhood sweepers assigned to every street, visiting at least four times a week to keep pavements clear  
• Specialist mechanical sweepers deployed in heavily tree-lined areas like Highbury New Park  
• Coordinated clean-ups with our Greenspace team to tackle leaf build-up in residential streets. 
• Real-time reporting tools for sweepers to flag fly-tipping and other issues immediately. 

Why It Matters:

Fallen leaves can create slippery surfaces and block drains, making streets less safe and accessible—especially for older residents, wheelchair users, and families with buggies. Our teams are working hard to stay ahead of the seasonal surge and we really appreciate your patience during this busy period  

How you can Help: 

• Report leaf build-up or other street issues via the Love Clean Streets app or your My Islington account. You can download the Love Clean Streets app to your phone. From Google Play or the Apple store.
• You could sign up to maintain a tree pit on your street help keep your neighbourhood green and tidy. 
• If you have leaves at the front of your property, please don’t sweep into the street as this may aid to a slip hazard. 

Year round street cleaning

Cleaning facilities and timelines

• We have around 1,000 litter bins and over 100 on-street recycling banks that are spread throughout the borough that we empty regularly.

• We remove any racist, abusive or sexist graffiti within 24 hours of it being reported and most other types of graffiti are removed within five working days. 

• We aim to remove fly-tipped waste from public land within 24 hours of being informed of it. 

How you can help 

Everyone can contribute to improving our environment and making Islington a better place to live, work and visit. You could sign up to maintain a tree pit on your street. Our authorised officers can issue fixed penalty notices to people that drop litter, including cigarette butts, or those that allow their dogs to foul and fail to clear it up. 

Contact us

Street cleaning in Islington is completed on an area basis. Islington is divided into three areas and we have a manager responsible for each area. Your area managers are:

• Central area – Daniel Allen
• North area – Tony Montgomery
• South area – Bill Reay 

Report an issue

You can report an issue on a street in Islington in the following ways: