Peterborough City Council company takes over street cleaning and grass cutting

Street cleaning, passenger transport, grounds maintenance, building maintenance, fleet services as well as the Nursery Lane site all became part of Aragon Direct Services on Saturday. They join building cleaning services which transferred in February, and waste collections which transferred in April.

Residents will still continue to contact the council to report issues such as flytipping, graffiti, broken glass or sharp needles, damage to play areas and litter and street cleaning. The best way to report a problem is online at www.peterborough.gov.uk/report or call (01733) 747474.

Mohammed Farooq, chair of Aragon Direct Services, said: “Peterborough City Council, Aragon Direct Services and Amey have worked hard to ensure a seamless transition of these key services. Great care has been taken to ensure we have all the correct requirements so there will be no disruption of these vital services to the residents of Peterborough. I would like to thank Amey for their full co-operation throughout this process.

“Aragon Direct Services has successfully taken over services on a like for like basis delivered by the same team of frontline staff. We are keen to support the local people delivering our local services agenda and have worked with all members of Amey staff to ensure training and support have been provided while transferring them to our new trading company, resulting in no job losses. After a period of settling in we will look at investing in the business to make improvements to enable us to sell services to new customers, including local businesses and neighbouring local authorities.”

Peterborough City Council made the innovative decision to set up a Local Authority Trading Company because of constraints on how it can raise and retain income from commercial operations. By creating a private limited trading company, it has more freedom to generate income through commercial operations. It also means the council can invest 100% of its profits back into maintaining and improving services as well as being able to develop a more flexible approach to meeting the growing needs of our city.

The new company is wholly owned by the council which means that it will remain fully accountable to the council and its elected representatives.