Opposition Claim Ealing Council Have Cut Street Cleaning Schedule

Lib Dems say regularity of deep cleansing has been halved without consultation

Opposition councillors on Ealing Council say they have discovered that the schedule for deep cleansing the borough’s streets has been halved.

They claim that streets will now be only cleaned in this way every twelve weeks rather than six weeks which the rota was reduced to last year. The information was found ‘buried deep’ in the minutes of a council report after Councillors investigated the issue after residents informed them that their road had not been swept since June.

Cllrs Malcolm and Steed cleaning up the streets

Councillor Andrew Steed, who represents Southfield ward for the Liberal Democrats said: “'Yet again Labour Ealing are reducing the service they provide to residents. Yet again there has been no formal announcement.''

Conservative opposition Leader, Cllr Gregory Stafford said: '' The Liberal Democrats are way behind the curve on this. The Conservative Group has been highlighting the lack of street sweeping and the abysmal service from this Labour run Council for months. We've asked questions at Council and spoken to the officers in charge. Unfortunately, it now seems you'll only get your street swept if your Councillors badger the Council. Given the state of the roads and pavements in Southfield Ward - rubbish, leaves, dog mess, flytipping, weeds in the gutters - the local Lib Dem Councillors haven't been bothering to do even that. However, I'm glad to see they've finallyly woken up to the problem."

Cllr Bassam Mahfouz as the Cabinet Member for Environment said: “These statements show that the Lib Dems have clearly been asleep on the job. We brought our proposals to change street cleaning to councillors at a key scrutiny meeting. More importantly the results of the changes are that or streets continue to be independently assessed as clean. The latest figures show that we are still amongst the cleanest in the city and cleaner than they were seven years ago.”

September 14 ( updated 18th), 2017