Keeping the Northern Beaches spic n span over summer

Thousands of beachgoers visit Manly’s world famous beach on an average day in January, and other beaches along the coast experience their busiest months in January and February.

While it is great to see so many people enjoying our popular beaches, it does put extra pressure on Council facilities such as public toilets, litter bins and rockpools. 

Council invests over $7.5 million annually to keep our toilet blocks, public litter bins and rock pools maintained and presented in the best possible condition.

We have increased cleaning over the holiday period to cope with the higher demand on Council facilities given the popularity of the Northern Beaches.

We are committed to ensuring our facilities are in good order so locals and visitors can enjoy their time out and about in the region.

Unfortunately, at peak times there can be exceptional circumstances where despite the extra services our facilities come under pressure. Council responds with our rapid response teams to assess and clean up any problem areas as an urgent priority.

We encourage people to contact Council’s Customer Service Centre on 1300 434 434 or visit help.northernbeaches.nsw.gov.au if they notice any issues such as overflowing bins or illegal dumping that need to be addressed.

Council has planned significant service improvements, with a new public place litter service scheduled to commence on 1 July and a tender underway for new cleaning contractors.

Here is the summer cleaning programme for some of Council’s most in demand facilities.

Litter bins: Council empties public place litter bins along the beaches twice daily during summer compared to daily at other times of the year. Bins are emptied each morning and then again in the afternoon.

Public toilet cleaning: Public toilets across the Northern Beaches are cleaned four to five times during weekdays and six times during weekends in summer. They are also cleaned in the evening 7 days a week. This compares to a cleaning programme of twice a day and once in the evening at other times in the year.

Council representatives and contractors do regular cleaning inspections to ensure cleaning is up to Council’s standards.

Rockpool cleaning: Rockpools are cleaned on a weekly schedule during summer, compared to fortnightly in winter.

In addition to the scheduled cleans, pumps are run where possible to refresh water on an ongoing basis, or assist in refilling after cleaning. 

A number of pools are also emptied and refilled between the full cleaning sessions to improve water quality (e.g Dee Why is refreshed on Sunday evenings after busy weekend use).

Seaweed is an issue at the moment, particularly at some of our rockpools.  Cleaning of rockpools is generally performed at night time to limit the impact on the community. However, the weed in the ocean outside the rock pool can be deposited in the pool on an incoming tide, after the cleaning has taken place.

This natural occurrence is understandably frustrating to the public. To improve community awareness, more information about the cleaning of our rock pools is available on Council’s website.