Communities and Local Government

• Communities and neighbourhoods
• About communities and neighbourhoods
• About cleaner, safer, greener

Communities and neighbourhoods

About cleaner, safer, greener communities

Improving the way we plan, design, manage and maintain our public open spaces and buildings

The state of our surroundings directly affects our quality of life and our general health and wellbeing. When people are asked what concerns them most, they highlight crime and antisocial behaviour, dirty streets, neglected open spaces, lighting and lack of facilities for young people.

Communities and Local Government is responsible for making our public open spaces:

• Cleaner - by seeing that they are properly maintained with efficient local services
• Safer - through the way they are planned, designed and looked after.
• Greener - by ensuring everyone has access to high quality parks and more attractive public spaces

We are working closely with various organisations, agencies and Government departments to ensure that everyone has access to attractive, high quality public spaces that meet the needs of all our different communities.

The partners aim to get rid of the abandoned cars, dog fouling, loss of play areas and footpaths and anti-social behaviour which blight so many open spaces.

We are spending an estimated £8bn a year on local environments. We aim to provide our partners with the resources and support to meet their targets to create cleaner, safer and greener places where people want to live not leave.

The work is already making a difference. Litter levels are going down continually, crime and anti-social behaviour are falling and people are more satisfied with their parks and open spaces. The State of the Cities Report (March 2006) has acknowledged the impact of Government policies in making cities better to live in.

Our recent achievements include:

• meeting targets on street cleanliness and reducing abandoned vehicles
• reducing crime, fear of crime and anti-social behaviour in areas with neighbourhood wardens
• increasing public satisfaction with parks and green spaces by 8% to 71% over the last three years, thorough our programmes
• merged Liveability and Home Office funding into the Safer & Stronger Communities Fund worth £660M over three years (2004-07), to make public spaces cleaner, safer and greener