Councillor Ndukwe Onuoha, Cabinet Member for Streetpride, Parks and Leisure, looks back on making Derby a cleaner, greener and more welcoming place to be:

I think it’s fair to say that we have accomplished a lot during 2025, from launching the Raynesway re-use pop up shop, keeping bins off streets, enhancing our parks, and working with the community to make our city safer. It has been an incredibly busy year both with visible improvements and hard work behind the scenes.

A big portion of this year’s work has been focused on practical steps to make it easier for residents to manage their waste well and laying the groundwork for the biggest change to our waste services in over a decade. Ahead of weekly food waste collections launching in March 2026, we have secured funding, expanded our fleet, advanced depot planning, prepared to recruit more staff, and began procurement for a contractor to process household food waste into renewable energy. The next big step in the process begins on 5 January 2026, when new containers and printed guides will start to be delivered to homes across the city.

Keeping Derby clean and accessible has remained a key priority for me. This year we launched the very successful bins off streets pilot to tackle bins left out after collection and improve pavement access. Fly-tipping has also been a growing focus, with continued work alongside partners to respond to problem areas and prepare stronger action for the new year. We also improved city centre cleaning with a fully electric sweeper that improves speed and quality of cleaning compared with manual sweeping.

A personal highlight has to be opening the Raynesway Refuse shop. Since August, more than 1,000 items and six tonnes of people’s trash have been rescued and turned into treasure. A huge thanks to our partners HM Martin and everyone involved in this brilliant project.

I’m also incredibly proud of our wonderful parks and the teams of staff and volunteers who keep them looking beautiful and worthy of the prestigious Green Flag Award for another year. Derby’s parks are world-class and I feel very strongly that we should continue to enhance them wherever possible.

Keeping our green spaces in good condition extends outside our parks too. This year we’ve invested in grass cutting to keep our roadside areas and other grounds looking tidy.

As we look to 2026, our focus remains on strengthening the services that keep Derby clean, green and welcoming and building on the brilliant progress we’ve made so far.

Finally, if you’re unsure about bin collections over the festive period, you can find more information here.