Current news
For applications to place a structure/equipment within the highway, please see: Information and guidance and Apply for a structure licence.
Road safety round of the Police and Crime Commissioner Community Action Fund (CAF) opens 17 November
This round offers parish and town councils, community groups, charities, voluntary organisations and others, grants of up to £10,000, to support road safety initiatives. Further details can be found at Community Action Fund (Police and Crime Commissioner LLR).
As you begin planning your applications, please be aware that any asset placed on the public highway must have formal permission from Leicestershire County Council before installation. Details of this can be found at Apply to place a structure or equipment within the highway.
Please do not apply until 17 November when the Road Safety application will be live – the deadline for applications is 12 January 2026.
Please share this with any community groups, charities, voluntary organisations, grassroots groups, and schools that may be eligible to apply.
National Highways and Transport (NHT) public satisfaction survey parish consultation
Leicestershire County Council has participated in the annual National Highways and Transport (NHT) Public Satisfaction Survey since 2008. The survey supports the council’s continued effort to understand and respond to the needs of residents. By analysing the results, we can monitor its performance on highway and transport issues at a local level, by identifying trends and benchmarking.
The survey is overseen by a company called, Measure 2 Improve (m2i) who also offer an additional Public Representatives Survey to supplement their findings.
The Public Representative Survey is designed to accept one response from each parish council, so we would ask that although the questionnaire is best completed by one person, the responses should represent the overall views of the parish council on the matters raised in the survey.
NHT Public Representative Survey
If you need help in completing the survey, please phone Cassandra Haywood on 0116 305 0504.
We encourage you to complete the survey online, but you can also download a copy to print and complete:
Parish council paper responses can be posted to:
Cassandra Haywood
Room 700
County Hall
Glenfield, Leicestershire, LE3 8RJ
or completed and scanned copies of the survey can be emailed to: cassandra.haywood@leics.gov.uk
Please complete the survey by Friday 28 November 2025. However, if your parish meeting falls outside of this time, please phone Cassandra Haywood on 0116 305 0504 and we will do our best to accommodate a later return date.
Your participation and support in this survey will help inform the continuous improvement of Highways and Transportation and it's very much appreciated.
Festive decoration application (Section 178)
If you are proposing to erect any festive decorations over, along or across the highway this coming season, you will need to apply for a licence under Section 178 of the Highways Act 1980. All applications must be submitted before the end of October to have the licences in place for December.
You can apply for a S178 Licence by completing this online form.
As part of the application process, you will be required to provide evidence that the column is safe and fit for purpose for the specific loads required, this is done by having the asset structurally tested.
If there are any unofficial attachments (i.e. flags) on the Leicestershire County Council owned streetlights that you are hoping to use for your festive display, these can be removed by Leicestershire County Council (at our expense).
Swift partnership re-launch
The re-launch of the swift partnership will be held online on the 23 October from 7 - 8.30 pm. This has been pushed back due to staff illness.
This is a small partnership group of appropriate organisations and volunteers interested in local swift conservation and associated projects across the county.
Anyone interested can email the Environment Policy and Strategy Team
The Road Safety Round of the Community Action Fund (CAF) opens on 17 November. This round offers parish & town councils, community groups, charities, voluntary organisations etc. grants of up to £10,000 to support road safety initiatives and the details are shared in the email below from Rebecca Lee, Community Grants Officer, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner.
As you begin planning your applications, please be aware that any asset placed on the public highway must have formal permission from Leicestershire County Council before installation, details of this can be found on the Apply to place a structure or equipment within the highway page.
Please do not apply until 17 November when the Road Safety Application has gone live. More details can be found on Community Action Fund | PCC. Deadline for applications is 12 January 2026. Please share this with any community groups, charities, voluntary organisations, grassroots groups, and schools that may be eligible to apply.
Recycling and waste
As of the 1 October all waste sites will return to their standard winter opening times which is 9 am - 4 pm.
All details regarding opening times/days are available at Waste and recycling. The Council continues to encourage residents to avoid busy periods such as weekends, especially bank holiday weekends, and to check the Council’s website before setting off.
Illegal parking Report it form
We now have a way for customers to report illegal parking online, see Parking enforcement. This is to improve the way parking is reported.
Composting workshops
Find out about future composting workshops. These workshops are free and open to any Leicestershire resident who is keen to start composting at home or wanting to further their knowledge. Please share this information with colleagues, friends and family who are Leicestershire residents.
Community Speed Watch 2025
Community Speed Watch (CSW) is an educational scheme run by Leicestershire County Council in association with Leicestershire Police to help residents reduce speeding traffic through their community. The scheme enables your volunteers to work within their community to raise awareness of the dangers of speeding and to help control the problem and reduce danger locally.
If you're interested or for more information, please see Community Speed Watch.
Muddy roads
Farming work is an important part of our rural economy in Leicestershire, but ongoing poor weather conditions can make it difficult for farmers to avoid leaving trails of mud on roads throughout the autumn and winter months.
Muddy roads can be difficult for road users, and we want to reassure you that the National Farmers’ Union regularly provides advice on this issue to farmers directly. They encourage the use of ‘Slippery Road Surface’ and ‘Mud on Road’ warning signs, cleaning vehicles before driving them on public routes, as well as including road sweeping and cleansing in their routine ploughing, spraying and harvesting operations.
Where required, district councils will cleanse muddy roads as part of their environmental duties. The county council may provide additional warning signage for motorists when needed and may even serve notice to those who continually muddy roads as a last resort, as well as recovering expenses incurred, in line with the Highways Act 1980.
If you notice a muddy road which has not been cleansed in your area, please contact us via Report a road problem online form or by email cscparishes@leics.gov.uk so that an assessment can be carried out.
Battery recycling campaign
We need your help to reduce the risk of serious fires by encouraging battery recycling. Where possible, please raise awareness of the following key messages:
- Always recycle batteries and electrical items separately from other types of waste.
- Batteries and unwanted electrical items should not go into kerbside recycling collections, unless there is a dedicated separate kerbside collection service for these items – please check with your local district council.
- Find suitable recycling points near you.
- Recycle your batteries and electrical items at Recycling and Household Waste Sites across Leicestershire.
More and more everyday items such as children’s toys, wireless headphones, mobile phones, laptops, electric toothbrushes and disposable vapes contain non-removable batteries. These batteries can become crushed or damaged in bin lorries or at waste sites if they are not recycled appropriately and can lead to fires which are hazardous, environmentally harmful and which cause costly damage and disruption to waste systems and infrastructure.
When crushed or damaged, lithium-ion batteries can be especially dangerous to the public, waste operators and firefighters as they cause fires that are very challenging to tackle. They can lead to explosions and chemical exposure. Once ablaze these batteries can keep reigniting; prolonging incidents with smoke and fumes affecting the air quality of neighbouring areas and communities, sometime for long periods of time.
As the rise of portable battery-powered devices leads to more lithium-ion batteries ending up in the bin, the number of fires caused by batteries in waste has increased accordingly:
- There were 700 fires caused by batteries in the UK waste system in 2022, and 1,200 in 2023 an increase of 71%.
- 1.6 billion batteries were thrown away in the UK over the last year; over 3,000 a minute, including over 1.1 billion electrical items containing hidden lithium-ion batteries.
- The National Fire Chiefs Council says that “Fires involving lithium-ion batteries are a disaster waiting to happen”.
Research by Material Focus (an environmental campaign group) revealed that last year, UK residents binned at least 24 batteries per year on average, including 15 electrical items containing batteries and nine loose batteries per year. This included 260 million disposable vapes.
Nearly half of the UK adults involved in this research did not know or had not heard that electrical items containing chargeable built-in batteries can catch fire if crushed or damaged, or that these batteries / electrical items therefore need to be disposed of or recycled separately to other types of waste.
Find out more information about never binning batteries and how to recycle batteries from Less Waste.
If you have any queries, please contact wasteprevention@leics.gov.uk
Local Transport Plan 4
The councils current Local Transport Plan, LTP3, is coming to an end in 2026, and no longer accords with national planning, transport, and environmental policies. It also has a limited focus on health and well-being and the potential benefits that active travel provides Leicestershire for local communities. We have taken the decision to update it with a new Local Transport Plan which will know as LTP4.
For more information visit Local Transport Plan.
The Environment and Transport Department is also working to develop supporting strategies, including Leicestershire Highway Design Guide, Electric Vehicle Strategy and Cycling and Walking Strategy which allow more opportunities for you to feed in your thoughts and views.