Streets across Barnet will be cleaned more thoroughly using money raised from the “very successful” roll-out of paid-for green bin rounds.

A £600,000-a-year investment in street cleaning by Barnet Council will see the creation of three area-based teams that will be better placed to keep streets tidy and respond quickly to problems like fly-tipping.

The cleaning teams will work to a schedule and have dedicated supervisors responsible for each location.

Residential streets will get two deep cleans every year if needed, along with up to four weed sprays and sweepings. There will also be a crackdown on graffiti and fly-tipping.

Meanwhile, town centres will be assigned “town keepers” responsible for street bins and pavement cleaning, with central areas cleaned every day.

Borough-wide teams will be responsible for the upkeep of trunk roads, as well as supporting the residential teams and clearing graffiti in town centres.

The council says funding for the improvements was freed up thanks to the introduction of the £70-a-year subscription service for garden waste collections, which it describes in a report as “well received” and “very successful”.

It comes on top of a £500,000-a-year investment in street cleaning announced by the council in June last year.

Although the street-cleaning measures were unanimously agreed at a meeting of the environment committee on Wednesday (September 9), Labour’s environment spokesperson Cllr Alan Schneiderman accused the council of a U-turn.

Cllr Schneiderman (Woodhouse) said: “I welcome this paper and the U-turn on street cleaning. This is going some of the way to put back in money and staff that were cut out of the budget over several years by this administration and led to the problems that now need to be fixed.”

Council officers will report back to the committee in a year’s time detailing the benefits of the street cleaning investment.