Backline
The backline is the physical line that forms the back edge to any paved area, whether it is a footway or a larger pedestrianised area. Usually the backline comprises the base of building facades, walls, low upstands, fences and hedges. It may also comprise items of street furniture and other legal or illegal structures and signs placed along the margin of the paved area.
Carriageway
That part of the road surface, excluding the road channel, which is designed for use by vehicles.
Channel
That edge of the road carriageway surface abutting the kerb of the footway, which is designed to channel water into drainage gullies.
COPL&R
The Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse, issued under Section 89 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. It contains the core criteria for assessing grades for litter and detritus that are used for the Cleanliness BVPI.
Defra
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Detritus
Detritus comprises dust, mud, soil, grit, gravel, stones, rotted leaf and vegetable residues, and fragments of twigs, glass, plastic and other materials.
Detritus does not include recent leaf and blossom fall, which for the purposes of NI 195 are also excluded from litter. However, if the leaves and/or blossom have lost their structure and are mushy, i.e. are no longer recognisable as leaves or blossom, then they are regarded as detritus.
Development Plans
A Development Plan is a statement of planning policies prepared by a local planning authority (usually the planning department of a local authority, unless an area lies within a National Park, in which case it is the National Park Authority), and is a statutory document. It contains a Proposals Map (see below) that is used to help map land-uses when planning a survey for the Cleanliness BVPI.
The Area Wide Development Plan can have different names, depending on the type of local planning authority. Three types of Area Wide Development Plan can be used to help plan a Cleanliness BVPI survey. In general terms:
- Unitary Authorities prepare a Unitary Development Plan;
- Districts (other than Unitary Authorities) prepare Local Plans; and,
- National Parks also prepare Local Plans.
Recent Planning legislation has replaced these forms of plan by a ‘Local Development Framework’, but until this is completed the earlier forms of Development Plan described above may still apply to an area.
Electoral Wards
Electoral wards, in addition to being the areas for which local councillors are elected, are also the smallest spatial units for which information on the Index of Multiple Deprivation is available. The boundaries of wards are decided after consultation by the Boundaries Commission, which periodically reviews and amends them to take account of population and developmental changes that may have occurred in an area.
ENCAMS
ENCAMS (an abbreviation of ‘Environmental Campaigns’) is a charity, and the Government’s official advisor on litter and other local environmental quality issues. It is responsible, amongst other functions, for carrying out the Annual Local Environmental Quality Survey Of England, on which the benchmark for the BVPI is based.
EPA
The Environmental Protection Act 1990
Footway
A paved area that is designed for use by pedestrians.
Graffiti
Graffiti is defined as any informal or illegal marks, drawings or paintings that have been deliberately made by a person or persons on any physical element comprising the outdoor environment, with a view to communicating some message or symbol etc. to others.
Flyposting
Flyposting is defined as any printed material and associated remains informally or illegally fixed to any structure. It includes any size of material from small stickers up to large posters.
Flyposting excludes formally managed and approved advertising hoardings and valid, legally placed signs and notices. It also excludes:
- business cards and handbills placed under vehicle windscreen wipers and vehicle door handles;
- illegal displays on movable objects such as advertising A boards, billboards on movable bases on farmland and other open land, and on 'barrage balloons' etc.
Index of Multiple Deprivation
The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) is a measure of deprivation that takes into account a range of factors relating to income, employment, health, housing, access to services, and child poverty.
Land Use
The use to which a particular piece of land is put. The Cleanliness BVPI is based on a survey of a set of land uses that are defined in section 4.0 - ‘Land Use Classes and Descriptions’.
LEQSE
The Annual Local Environmental Quality Survey of England. This has been commissioned by DEFRA, and carried out by ENCAMS. The results from the 2001/2 LEQSE in relation to litter and detritus formed the basis of the benchmark for the Cleanliness BVPI. LEQSE is updated annually. Recent Annual LEQSE Reports are to be found in full on the ENCAMS website: www.encams.org
LGA
The Local Government Association
Litter
There is no statutory definition of litter. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 (s.87) states that litter is ‘anything that is dropped, thrown, left or deposited that causes defacement, in a public place’. This accords with the popular interpretation that ‘litter is waste in the wrong place’.
However, local authority cleansing officers and their contractors have developed a common understanding of the two terms, and the definitions used for this BVPI (and for the LEQSE) are based on this industry norm:
Litter includes mainly synthetic materials, often associated with smoking, eating and drinking, that are improperly discarded and left by members of the public; or are spilt during waste management operations. Litter may also include putrescible or clinical wastes, or faeces such as dog, bird and other animal faeces.
Note - This definition is aligned with the opinion of most members of the public who regard faeces - especially dog faeces - as comprising litter.
For the purposes of NI 195, recent leaf and blossom falls are excluded from the definition of litter.
Local Development Framework
See 'Development Plan'.
Pedestrian Routes
The majority of pedestrian routes comprise footways beside standard carriageways; pedestrianised areas; main pedestrian circulation routes within housing areas, and footpaths crossing public open spaces. These should be included within the appropriate land-use Class.
A minority of pedestrian routes are adopted highways closely bounded by walls, fencing or other boundary structures. These should be included in the ‘Other Highways Land-use Class.
Proposals Map
A Proposals Map forms part of a local authority’s Area Wide Development Plan (or Local Development Framework). It is a plan that shows how planning policies affect different parts of a district. It will commonly show Primary and other retail and commercial areas; recreation areas; and ‘employment zones’ that include industrial and warehousing areas, science parks, etc.
However, there can be variations in both format and degree of detail provided between one authority’s map and those of others. Therefore, it is important that other mapping and information sources and the use of scouting, as recommended by this Website, are all used when planning the NI 195 survey.
Recreation Site
Recreation sites or areas include a wide range of open spaces that are freely accessible to the public and maintained by a local authority. Recreational sites include parks, picnic sites, lakesides, riversides, public cemeteries (but excluding churchyards) and cycleways (but excluding cycleways that are classified as ‘Other Highways’. Note: many canal towpaths are excluded because they do not comprise Relevant Land for a Principal Litter Authority.
Relevant Land (For The Purpose Of NI 195)
For the purpose of the Cleanliness BVPI, ‘relevant land’ will include:
- relevant land of a Principal Litter Authority, as set out in S.86 (4) of the EPA; and
- relevant highways, as set out in S.86 (9) of the EPA.
The following categories of relevant land are excluded:
- relevant land of a designated statutory undertaker;
- relevant land of a designated educational institution;
- relevant Crown land, such as naval military or air force bases.
Public Rights of Way
A public right of way is a way (a route over which people go) over which all members of the public have a right of passage.
Public rights of way include footpaths, carriageways, bridleways, ‘BOATS’ (byways open to all traffic) and ‘RUPPS’ (roads used as public paths). In general, BOATS and RUPPS are relatively rare, but they are common in some parts of the country.
Footpaths, bridleways, BOATS and RUPPS are shown on Ordnance Survey Explorer and Pathfinder Maps.
Bridleways, BOATS and RUPPS may be surveyed for the BV 199 and are included in the ‘Other Highways’ land-use class.
Although Ordnance Survey maps provide a reliable guide to most public rights of way, the definitive map of public rights of way in an area is held by the local highway authority, who will also keep a record of any changes as they occur. This record of changes should be checked periodically when up-dating a survey database.
Surveyors
Local authority staff who are carrying out a survey for the Cleanliness BV 199.
Transect
A ‘transect’ is the name given to an area of relevant land/highway that is sampled as part of a NI 195 survey. There are broadly two types of transect: one on highway sites, and the other on recreation and other open areas.
Transects on Highways
A transect on a highway is normally 50 metres long, extending the whole width of the street or highway from backline to backline. It will include footways, road channels and carriageways, pedestrian refuges, ‘splitter’ islands and central reservations. It may also include landscaped areas such as verges, grassed areas, shrubbed areas, planters, tree pits and the bases of hedges and fences that bound areas of relevant land/highway which comprise 50 metre lengths of the highway, from backline to centreline.
On dual carriageways, or other roads which are judged to be too busy for surveyors to cross and re-cross safely, transects are surveyed on one side of the road only, but surveyors should cross to survey a transect on the other side of the road only where it is safe to so.
Transects On Recreation Areas And Other Open Spaces
A transect may take different forms in Recreation Areas and other open spaces. Along footways crossing such spaces, transects should normally be 50 metres long, and extend 2 metres onto grassed or other areas that lie either side of the path.
On larger open areas, such as sports fields and play areas, transects should not exceed 50 metres on either axis. This may mean subdividing such areas for survey purposes into a series of rectangular transects which have maximum dimensions of 50 x 50 metres, although not all the transects will have the same dimensions. The precise layout of the transects will be determined by the shape and functional characteristics of the open space in question.
Wards
See ‘Electoral Wards’.