Birmingham is set to see more litter bins, emptied more often, if the Local Conservatives win the May all‑out Council elections, it has been revealed today.
Since declaring effective bankruptcy in 2023, Birmingham City Council have been telling residents they will not generally install replacement bins for damaged ones, nor install new litter bins across public streets, even refusing offers from residents to pay for a new bin to be installed. With street litter and fly‑tipping rapidly getting out of control, Birmingham Local Conservatives have announced they will install 3,000 new bins to replace broken ones and provide bins at new locations across the city, as well as increase the frequency with which bins are emptied in busy areas such as local high streets, or at busy times such as after a bank holiday, if they win control, as part of their plans to end the strike, balance the books and clean up the city.
Over the last few years the Local Conservatives have been pushing the Council to clean up the streets and in the first few months of the bin strike put a motion to the City Council calling on them to declare a public health emergency, end the strike and clean up the growing mountain of litter covering the city.
The growing litter issue is expected to worsen during the year as the Council push ahead with their unpopular plan to force fortnightly bins on to the residents of Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield. Local Conservatives are the only party to have announced they will scrap Labour’s fortnightly bin collections and instead keep it weekly if they win in May.
Cllr Robert Alden, Leader of the Opposition and Local Conservatives, said:
The amount of litter has grown significantly in Birmingham across the last decade. Each year over 6,000 bags of rubbish are collected by some of the city’s incredible volunteers, many in local litter‑buster groups. But the Council isn’t helping by ensuring there are more bins across the city and that where there is a bin, it is working and emptied regularly. When the Conservatives last led the City, Birmingham was voted the cleanest city in Britain. Residents deserve to live in a clean city again, and that’s what a Conservative Council would deliver.
Cllr Tim Huxtable, Shadow Cabinet Member for the Environment and Transport, said:
When the Council leaves a litter bin full or broken, it attracts dumping of rubbish next to it and discourages others from disposing of their rubbish properly. That’s why it is vital that, as well as new and replacement litter bins, the ones already in place are also emptied more frequently. Places such as local high streets and shopping parades need their bins emptying more often, as do bins in parks after a nice bank holiday weekend. That is what a Conservative Council will do to help deliver our plan to clean up the city.
