Posts with tag: litter affecting house prices

Budgets for Street Cleaning Cut by 80% in Some Parts

Published On: February 1, 2015 at 1:54 pm

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Street cleaning spending has been cut in most parts of the country, causing concern over litter problems.

For some local authorities, street cleaning budgets have been reduced by over 80% research has found. Studies of all 326 English councils reveal that there has been an overall drop of 16% since 2010.1

The regions seeing the highest cuts have had typical decreases of around one third. However, some individual councils have dropped budgets by more than 80%.

Budgets for Street Cleaning Cut by 80% in Some Parts

Budgets for Street Cleaning Cut by 80% in Some Parts

Our recent article on litter issues reveals how this problem can take 12% off a property’s value: /?p=10072.

Hilary Benn, shadow communities and local government secretary carried out the research on councils. He says: “Clean streets help to engender a sense of civic pride but this is being undermined by
reductions to the very frontline that David Cameron said he would protect.

“Labour would devolve power and money to local areas and work with them to find savings through collaboration, allowing them to protect the frontline services residents expect and rely on.”1

Labour pledge to conduct the biggest devolution of economic power and funding to regions in England, if they return to power. Ed Balls, shadow chancellor has planned to devolve £30 billion over five years, which includes funds for housing, transport, business support, employment and adult skills.

The highest cuts in street cleaning budgets were found in the West Midlands, where reductions of 30% since 2010 have been experienced. After this was the South West, with 28% less spending, and the North East, with slashes of 27%.1

The smallest drop was in the South East at 6%, followed by the East of England at 9%.1

Overflowing wheelie bins on pavements outside properties is also believed to affect the value of a home.

1 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2935709/Street-cleaning-budgets-cut-80-cent-Fears-blight-litter-report-finds-linked-higher-levels-crime-lower-house-prices-12-cent.html

Litter Outside Houses can Cut 12% off Value

Published On: January 19, 2015 at 10:34 am

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Categories: Property News

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No one likes to see litter disguising their street, but it has now been revealed that if your road is full of rubbish, the value of your home could be knocked by tens of thousands of pounds.

Neighbourhoods covered in litter can see property prices drop by around 12%, a report has found.

Cleaning up an area can have as big an impact on a house’s selling price as building an extension.

The research also revealed that reducing litter can help to cut crime, which is another factor in determining property prices.

This is the first study conducted on how litter affects house prices. The Keep Britain Tidy campaign found that the value of suburban homes with litter problems can be calculated at between 2.7-11.8% less than they should be.1

Litter Outside Houses can Cut 12% off Value

Litter Outside Houses can Cut 12% off Value

The average property value in England and Wales is £176,581, meaning that a serious litter issue could take £20,837 off the price. For a £500,000 home, the loss in value could be £58,823.

The report stated that if litter affected just 1% of the nation’s 22m properties, the total loss in value would surpass £1 billion.

The report cautions: “Even taking the lower end of the scale, a 2.7% reduction in value would represent a considerable loss in value for many homeowners.”1

These numbers are based on a National Association of House Builders pricing model in the USA. Furthermore, a survey in the USA in 2009 found that litter would influence 93% of house buyers, and 55% of estate agents say litter would reduce their valuation by up to 9%.1

Keep Britain Tidy’s Tim Burns says: “When people are looking to buy a new home they want to feel they are buying in a nice place, where the community is cared for.

“There’s a lot of evidence to show in a more littered environment, people are less helpful to each other. Crime breeds litter and it might be that litter breeds crime. The knock-on effect is that people don’t want to move there and prices are reduced. If you clean up the neighbourhood, it can improve your bank balance.”1

The report included data from a study in Massachusetts, USA. 34 crime hotspots were identified in the state, where they accounted for 23% of all crime in Massachusetts, but make up less than 3% of its geographical area.

During a one-year period, half of the hotspots were cleaned up and half weren’t touched. The tidied parts experienced a 20% fall in calls to police and a 27% reduction in litter after the test period.1

The National Association of Estate Agents’ Mark Hayward states: “You buy with your heart, not your head, so first impressions are important. Impressions of a property are made in the first two minutes, so the street leading up to it can make the buyer say, ‘No thank you’.”1

1 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2915296/Litter-outside-home-knocks-12-house-prices-meaning-cuts-street-cleaning-costs-owners-thousands.html