A new campaign to “clean up Glasgow’s streets” has been launched by the GMB as the council continues its “deep clean” of the city.
The local authority has teamed up with organisations including Police Scotland and various housing associations to tackle the persistent problems with overflowing bins and fly-tipping after Glasgow was crowned the fly-tipping capital of Europe.
But the GMB says this is only a temporary solution and has started its own campaign for more street sweepers and cleansing workers to be employed using the council’s street cleaning budget.
READ MORE: Glasgow streets to get 'deep clean' in £2 million city centre recovery campaign
They are urging the public to support them in their mission.
GMB convenor, Chris Mitchell, said: “We are still short of 120 road sweepers and the streets are a mess because of this.
“The workforce has lost all its pride and there are streets within the city that have not been swept for the best part of six or seven months.
“Glasgow City Council has decided to work with other organisations like the police, housing associations and to target graffiti removal and certain areas of Glasgow.
“They are calling this a 'week of action'. They sweep the streets, remove the fly tipping and graffiti before moving onto another area. But that is only for a week and then it’s left again.
“I don’t agree with that and I think there should be a steady work flow every week.
“We need a campaign where the public is involved to save our streets. The public is continuously sending in messages to the council and their local councillors about how dirty the streets are. We need a steady flow of employment. This week of action does nothing but clean a street for a week in one area of Glasgow and then they move on somewhere else.
“The public will then have a certain expectation and think their streets are being cleaned regularly but the reality is they won’t come back to that area for the next year. The streets will always need to be cleaned and the bins emptied.
“The existing staff just don’t have the capacity to do this and they have lost all pride in their work.”
A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said: “Our week of action programme is now a regular and on-going feature of our work to maintain the city’s environment.
“We draw information from a range of sources to identify areas most affected by environmental issues and use a week of action to target these issues in an intensive way.
“The programme began as a way to target fly-tipping and ensure local businesses and other organisations have appropriate arrangements in place for disposing of their waste.
“But has developed to include other work such as organising community litter picks, clearing road gullies and our deep clean teams that are tackling hard to reach litter, grime and weeds in all city neighbourhoods.
“The week of action of programme is delivered in conjunction with other city-wide street cleansing services such as street sweeping and emptying street litter bins.
“Mechanical street sweepers are routinely deployed throughout the city and we always look to improve our service where ever possible.”
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