Leafing information and schedules

Each autumn the council’s cleaning service collects in the region of 1,200 tonnes of leaves from Southwark’s streets and housing estates, to deal with the additional demands on the service at this busy time of year additional resources in the form of staff and equipment is deployed for a six week period during the peak time for leaf fall.

In 2017 the additional leafing resources will be deployed from 30 October which also coincides with the start of the formal leafing schedule (see below), not all streets in the borough appear on the leafing schedule however those roads that do have a medium to high proportion of trees are included and therefore require a more frequent street cleaning presence to clear the build up of fallen leaves. Roads that are not included on the formal leafing schedule will continue to be swept once every four weeks as per the normal street cleaning schedule.

During this very busy period we would ask residents to be mindful that we are unable to ensure that streets even on leafing schedule can remain leaf free at all times as due to the nature of leaf fall at peak times a road that is cleared of leaves in the morning can be entirely covered in leaves again within hours.

The leafing schedule only states the week that a road will be visited for leaf clearance and not a specific day as there maybe occasions when weather conditions and/or other variables may delay or accelerate the leafing process leading to faster or slower progress.