03.10.23 – Love SOT Initiative, Surface Dressing in Staffordshire

Residents, community groups and businesses are being praised for showing their pride in the city and organising litter picks and tidy-ups, as a major milestone has been reached in a clampdown on illegal dumping.

More than 20 businesses, as well as community groups and residents young and old have held clean-up events in their local areas over the past two weeks, as part of Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s #LoveSoT initiative. Activities have taken place in communities from Sandyford to Stoke, Smallthorne to Middleport, with people pledging to hold regular activities in their communities for the future.

It comes as the council last week reached the 100^th day in its illegal dumping campaign to help to rid streets of rubbish and tackle and fine the culprits.

The momentum will continue with announcements coming soon on successful applications of the Big Green Fund, more pledges, and the launch of the annual #LoveSOT event in Spring 2024.

To report illegally dumped rubbish, or find out about community litter picks, please visit: www.stoke.gov.uk/illegaldumping

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By the end of August, Staffordshire County Council’s highways crews had completed more than 1.2 million square metres of surface dressing across the county. That’s about 120 miles in total, or 193 kilometres.

This means crews are well on track to reach their 1.5 million square metre goal by the end of the year.

Surface dressing is used to prolong the life of roads that are already in a decent condition. In fact, roads not surface dressed can need replacing three to four times as often.

The main surface dressing programme is carried out during the summer months, when the weather is warm and dry.

Crews will continue with the surface dressing programme as long as the weather permits

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