News / Bristol Waste
Converted milk float helps clean city centre streets
Gliding silently along St Augustine’s Parade towards the Hippodrome on a chilly Friday morning, an electric milk float is a reminder of a bygone age.
But you can’t get your bottles of blue top or half a dozen eggs from this milk flat. Instead, it stops close to the former Co-Op to fill up with water to continue its new job as part of a fleet of vehicles cleaning Bristol’s city centre streets.
The milk float – that in the 1970s used to operate from the former Ashton Dairy on Durnford Street – now operates across the city centre from 5am to 1pm every Thursday to Monday.
The reconditioned milk float is operated by Bristol Waste and funded by the Bristol City Centre Business Improvement District (Bristol City Centre BID).
Every morning the team clean mess on the pavements and in business doorways and entrances, as well as removing unwanted graffiti, cleaning street furniture and bus stops, and deep cleaning pavements.
All levy-paying businesses in the city centre are also able to call out the vehicle for any urgent work alongside their day to day cleaning duties.
Bristol Waste staff at work next to the converted milk float
“People will definitely notice a difference,” said Gary Hill, team supervisor for street cleansing at Bristol Waste’s Lewins Mead depot.
“We enjoy the job we do. It’s fun. And to make things look clean, it’s rewarding.”
As Gary speaks soon after 7am, two Bristol Waste workers stop the milk float, pull back its covers to reveal a new high-tech interior and start jet washing the pavement as early morning commuters walk along the newly-polished pavements on their way to work.
The converted milk float has been funded by Bristol City Centre BID
Read more: New plans to revitalise Park Street and Queen’s Road
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