News and consultations

Current news

For applications to place a structure/equipment within the highway, please see: Information and guidance

Leicestershire major flooding incident

A major incident was declared on Monday 6 January 2025 in Leicestershire due to widespread flooding across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, with dozens rescued by emergency services. Please be reminded of the flooding responsibilities outlined below.

Flooding responsibilities

We are the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) which covers:

• investigating reported flooding occurrences (mainly where properties have been flooded internally) after the event in priority of the flooding impact
• being the statutory consultee for major planning applications
• issuing consents for works on watercourses and can enforce to ensure flow is maintained in the watercourse (under the Land Drainage Act)
• having a responsibility for strategic flood risk management planning (co-ordination role with other risk management authorities

Other responsibilities are held by:

• Land owners – the owner of the land or property next to or over a river, stream, ditch or piped flow of water (culvert) that forms part of a watercourse, is legally termed a ‘riparian landowner’ of that section of the watercourse
• The Environment Agency – manages the risk of flooding from main rivers, reservoirs, estuaries and the sea, as well as being a coastal erosion risk management authority
• Highway authorities (Leicestershire County Council) are responsible for highway drainage. We are the highways authority for Leicestershire water and sewerage companies
• Water and sewerage companies are responsible for managing the risks of flooding from water and foul or combined sewer systems (Severn Trent Water and Anglian Water in Leicestershire

More information about flooding and who to contact: Flood risk know what to do and Be Aware - Flooding (LLR Prepared).

Gritting

Our gritting teams continue to treat key routes during the night following the continuing cold weather spell. Please do take extra care when driving.

An interactive gritting map showing all first priority and second priority road gritting routes is available at Gritting and travel this winter.

See Leicestershire County Council's winter plans by following us on Facebook or X (Twitter)

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.

Our 2025 programme will be running from May to October, and we still have available slots.

Expressions of interest are now being invited for our 2025 scheme. CSW works largely via the good work of the volunteers, but it does require significant input from Leicestershire County Council as the Highway Authority and also the Police in terms of back-office support with writing to the registered keepers of the vehicles detected speeding.

To ensure we maximise our resources and that of our partners, your request to run a scheme in your community will be measured against our criteria – this will determine what level of support we can offer.

Please note: if your request to run CSW is accepted your Parish will need a minimum of 12 volunteers, one of which will act as co-ordinator for the scheme.

Please make sure your appointed co-ordinator is able to use Excel – as it's their responsibility to input captured data into an Excel document and forwarded to the police each day.

Also, if your community has not previously participated in CSW you'll need to get a minimum of 200 signatures or 20% of the village/location population (whichever is the lower) to support the scheme. A pledge document is available at Get Involved (Community Speed Watch Leicestershire).

If you're interested or for more information, please visit communityspeedwatch.org.uk

Structure Licence payment process

A fee of £235 is now payable for each structure licence application. Payments are to be made online via BACS using the information below:  

• Account Number: 87418460
• Sort Code: 60-60-06

The fee will not apply to any application received before 1 January 2025.

Work continues to review and improve the way that licences are administered and, as part of this review, a new downloadable application form will be available very soon, with an aim for online applications in the future.  

Metal Matters campaign

Our waste team are partnering with Alupro (Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation) 2025 for the Metal Matters communication programme – a programme delivered to residents with the aim of encouraging recycling of metal and changing recycling behaviour. The aim is to increase the recycling of materials such as foil, drinks cans and aerosols.

It is estimated that around 3,000 tonnes of metal is sent for disposal per year, instead of recycling in Leicestershire, and as metal is a valuable resource, it is expected that an increased capture rate of metal would generate additional income for the council and save money on disposal costs.

The Metal Matters campaign will start on 20 January for 6 weeks.

Host a compost workshop

Is your parish interested in hosting a compost workshop in late February/early March?

Our Environment and Waste team are looking for places to hold composting workshops to introduce people to how simple and rewarding home composting can be. They will be delivered by our volunteer master composters and are free to Leicestershire residents.

The sessions (minimum of 10 attendees per session) are likely to last about an hour and aim to give people the skills and confidence to compost at home. If you're interested in hosting one of these sessions or you would like more information, please contact sarah.varnam@leics.gov.uk

More information on recycling and waste services in Leicestershire, how you can reduce waste, reuse materials, recycle and compost can be found at lesswaste.org.uk

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.

Recycling and Waste

All of the recycling and household waste sites close at 4pm over the winter months (on the days they're usually open) last admittance is at 3.55pm. As always, please check our Find a recycling and household waste site in preparation for your visit as some sites are unable to accept certain materials and in extreme cases sites may have to be closed until there is sufficient capacity to run them safely.

The waste site at Melton is due to be closed from 13 January for up to 4 weeks for essential maintenance – we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. Details of alternative sites can be found at Find a recycling and household waste site.

Discarded batteries can cause fires. Information on how to recycle batteries correctly can be found on the Take Charge site.

General information on recycling can be found at lesswaste.org.uk

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.