The co-ordinated approach aims to ensure roads and pavements around priority areas and important public places are as safe as possible for residents during the annual leaf drop.

As a city, Wolverhampton is home to more than 500,000 trees and if the leaves fall on public land, it is the responsibility of the city council to remove them. Leaves that fall on private property are the responsibility of the landowner to remove.

Between November and December our street cleansing and gully tanker teams collect around 300 tonnes of fallen leaves – the equivalent of around 25 double decker buses.

To tackle the mammoth task, teams use intelligence including street tree data, information about historic flooding sites and past enquiries to prioritise key areas.

Priority factors include areas of high footfall and high use such as town centres, schools and transport hubs, areas at flooding risk, areas where there is heavy or sustained leaf fall and areas which are causing public concern.

The council also monitors wind exposure, topography, weather forecasting and rainfall to target resources.

Street cleaning teams use mechanised and manual sweepers to clear leaves and further cleansing is carried out by our gully tanker team who tackle leaves caught in gullies with a high-volume combination vacuum and jet vac tanker.

Councillor Bhupinder Gakhal, City of Wolverhampton Council’s cabinet member for resident services said: “It’s incredible to think that Wolverhampton is home to more than half a million trees. But with all those beautiful leaves, we inevitably see a large amount fall at this time of year.

“In wet weather, those fallen leaves can become slippery or collect in gullies and create problems with drainage. It is important that we tackle this issue and we do this in a variety of ways – through key data, specialist machines and the dedicated manual work of our crews.

“While our cleansing programmes are carefully planned, unforeseen elements such as extreme weather and parked vehicles can impact delivery, so our teams work together to remain flexible and responsive throughout the season.

“As ever, we will be concentrating on keeping residents safe this autumn by tackling the high use areas such as town centres, schools and transport hubs as well as making sure we include places where people have particular concerns.”

Please don’t be tempted to sweep or blow leaves from your gardens onto the road or pavement, which will undo the good work by our teams. Instead, compost them or put them in your garden waste bin (purple wheelie bin) ready for the next scheduled collection.