STREET cleansing services will be cut by a quarter next year, with around 25 front line staff to be lost.

The changes will also see five fewer mechanical sweepers out cleaning Bradford’s streets.

Bradford Council says it is planning to “transform” its services to better handle the cuts, but Councillors have expressed concerns over the changes.

The shake up will see the Council, under pressure to dramatically reduce its budget in the coming years, cut £1 million from street cleansing budget.

It will also merge its street cleaning service with its parks service to “ensure greater efficiency.”

Council wardens will also be split into two roles, civil enforcement and community engagement/environmental enforcement, with staff sharing roles like grass cutting and emptying litter bins.

The changes are expected to take place in April.

A report sent to Bradford’s five area committees said: “The Street Cleansing budget is currently £4.7m.

“The service is having to save over £1m in 2019/20 with a reduction in staffing and vehicles. Work is ongoing with the trade unions to redesign the service within the reduced financial envelope.”

Council officers have been visiting the different area committees in the past week to discuss the plans with members.

At the Bradford West Area Committee, members were told that the details of where the job losses would be is yet to be finalised.

But they were told for Bradford West the number of street cleaners was likely to drop from around 16 to 12.

In the same report members were told that the number of calls made to street cleansing teams has risen by a fifth in the past year.

The call outs were for issues like litter, leaves, dog fouling and overflowing litter bins.

In the April to October period there was 3,051 call outs to street cleansing teams in the district. This was up 21 per cent from 2,512 in the same period last year.

Councillor Sarfraz Nazir (Lab, Manningham) was annoyed that the report didn’t include more detail of what the changes would mean for his constituents.

He said: “These are front facing servies. This is what people are paying their Council Tax for. Cuts like this are the biggest impacts our constituents are going to see.”

Describing the restructure, the report says: “The merger of Parks and Street Cleansing will develop a pathway forward for more integrated working between all aspects of the Neighbourhood services in the future with staff being more interchangeable in their daily tasks. There will be closer synergies and more opportunities for joined up working.”

Officers agreed to come back to the committee in January when they will have more detail on how the cuts will hit each individual constituency.