Dundee SNP Council cannot keep Dundee clean: “Another fine mess from the SNP”, say the LibDems

Two Dundee City Councillors have today called the SNP council administration as “little short of incompetent” when it comes to keeping the city clean. The decision to “stand down” servicing of recycling Eurobins in some Dundee streets as the Council doesn’t have the resources to do the job – and the continuing mess in the City Centre area– notably Whitehall Street and Murraygate are visible to all.

Councillors Fraser Macpherson and Craig Duncan said they are “thoroughly sick” on the excuses and gaslighting of the SNP administration saying that repeated promises that action was being taken were meaningless.     

Councillor Macpherson said :

“It is like groundhog day with the SNP. You raise issues around its failure to properly resource environment management, they criticise you for raising it, claim ‘nothing to see here’ but the situation continues to get worse.”

Last Friday, a constituent of Councillor Macpherson contacted Dundee City Council about uncollected recycling of Eurobins in Tait’s Lane and was told by the council’s customer services team this would not be uplifted because:

“Unfortunately due to staffing and resource issues, paper and MPT Eurobin collection has been temporarily stood down.”

Councillor Macpherson said he was shocked that this was the messaging from the council. He added:

“My constituent replied to that ‘SNP Dundee Council is in a sad state when the they can't even simply empty bins - that we pay them for.’ It is dreadful that it has come to this and I and my group colleagues are never done reporting issues like this to Dundee City Council.”

“Let’s be clear that the environment staff are excellent and hard-working – be they on street cleaning, parks maintenance, bin collection or the other environment responsibilities.  I and my group colleagues cannot express enough our gratitude to the staff for the sterling efforts they make week in week out.”   

“The real issue here is years of mismanagement and under-resourcing by the failing SNP council administration – 39 fewer street cleaners than in 2015 sums it up really. We have warned about this time and time again but trying to raise this at council committees just results in gaslighting and denial by SNP councillors.”

On 10th June, Liberal Democrat Councillors raised a motion at the council’s City Governance Committee saying that the council should establish a short-term working group chaired by the Director of Neighbourhood Services and with cross-party and officer representation to thoroughly investigate the issues to attempt to establish long-term solutions to tackle the issues.     

Councillor Macpherson said:

 “We raised this in a positive way to try to get some cross-party agreement about city cleanliness in the City Centre and in neighbourhoods right across Dundee.”   

“We are grateful for the support of the council’s Labour Group but the attitude of SNP councillors was summed up by environment convener Councillor Heather Anderson who called the proposal for cross-party working “insulting.” Councillor Anderson is in denial about the extent of the problem and should now apologise for that “insulting” comment – it is in fact we who are insulted – by the complacency of SNP councillors.”

Councillor Duncan said in his Broughty Ferry ward area he has recently raised overflowing Eurobins in numerous locations including the Campfield Square recycling centre twice in as many weeks, Manor Place, Hamilton Street, Strathmore Street and Ralston Road. He added:

“There are issues right across my ward – east to west – and it is very clear that the SNP council has left the council with insufficient capacity to keep our city clean and tidy.”    

“It is not fair on the hard-working staff and it is about time the SNP got its act together, stopped living in denial and revisited our positive suggestion for cross-party working to resolve the issues because let’s face it, left to its own devices, it will never be resolved by the SNP acting alone.They have run the council for 15 years and what a pitiful mess they have made of it.”

The councillors again highlighted the mess of graffiti and rubbish in the City Centre; an issue they have repeatedly raised.

Councillor Macpherson added:

“The Courier and Evening Telegraph highlighted our concerns about the on-going issues in the City Centre back in February. We were particularly concerned of the Murraygate area and were given all the assurances of the day that this would be tackled. Some graffiti was removed but not all of it. Graffiti on adjacent Peter Street has been a blot of the landscape for months if not years. The graffiti in Murraygate is now worse than ever.   

“Back in February one SNP councillor Lynne Short said our raising these issues about Dundee City Centre was “to talk it down”. This is typical SNP gaslighting their way through an issue. We raise the SNP’s failure to protect and enhance Dundee’s environment and failure to keep the city neat and tidy because we love the city and because left to the failing SNP nothing will ever improve.”

“I have again written to the Head of Economic Development and Planning and the Director of Neighbourhood Services about the City Centre issues – not just Murraygate but in other streets too, such as the grime on the pavements in Whitehall Street. But there urgently needs to be political leadership to resource environment management properly, otherwise the situation will never improve long-term.”

“The SNP will no doubt respond to our raising this serious issue again by saying they have a short term £200 000 investment in environmental improvements. They tried the same last year – zero long term improvement. Short-termism is all we ever get from the SNP. It is just not good enough.”

Councillor Duncan said the Liberal Democrat Group will continue to raise the need for a cross-party working group to properly investigate the resources needed to see a long-term improvement in the city’s cleanliness.   

He concluded:

“No matter how much the SNP try to bat this issue away, we will keep coming back. The future of Dundee is too important to ignore this serious issue.”