Council say service will improve and Ealing will be cleaner
Ealing Council has responded to claims that a new waste contract - which was negotiated behind closed doors - will mean dirtier streets and parks.
The allegations have been made by opposition councillors who say full details of the discussions with Amey (formerly Enterprise) should have been made public.
They fear the new deal will lead to a downgraded service and worry that many parks won't get the thorough cleaning they previously did.
An Ealing Council spokesperson said this isn't the case:
"The council is making a number of changes to its refuse and recycling contract to improve the service and make Ealing cleaner. From April, we are introducing neighbourhood teams who will be responsible for ensuring that the highest possible standards of street cleaning are maintained including carrying out street cleaning the day after refuse and recycling collections. We are also introducing new improved street cleaning machines to clean our streets and parks – this will help to free up park staff to concentrate on horticultural duties.
"Last year we received more Green Flags for Ealing parks than ever before and this year we are entering even more parks for the award. General cleaning for parks and open spaces takes place on a twice-daily, daily, weekly or fortnightly basis depending on the location. Two years ago we introduced deep cleans to our parks, under the old contract there weren’t any. This more intense ‘spring cleaning’ has been reviewed and we have worked out a sensible programme that is based on local knowledge of each park or open space to make the cleaning service more efficient. It will include deep cleans at 33 priority sites including cemeteries four times a year with monthly cleans in some parks in April, May and June. In other sites there will be annual deep cleans.
"Over the past six months we have seen a significant improvement in the contractor's street cleaning performance - last week 83% of the streets inspected reached our top standard at first inspection rising to 96% by the second check. Excellent progress is also being made to meet the borough's recycling targets and latest figures show we have achieved the highest ever year-to-date recycling rate of 43%.
19th March 2014
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