Birmingham’s street-cleaning plan “built on wishful thinking”, Conservatives warn
Council officers admit they are “appalled” by current service as questions mount over whether Birmingham is doing enough to clean up its streets
Birmingham Conservatives have warned that the city’s plans to tackle dirty streets and fly-tipping risk failure unless street cleaning is made a genuine priority.
At Wednesday’s Neighbourhoods Overview and Scrutiny Committee, councillors heard a stark assessment of the scale of the problem facing Birmingham.
During the meeting, under questioning from the Conservative Chair of the committee, Cllr Richard Parkin (Con, Sutton Reddicap), the council said it was “appalled at the level of service we provide”.
The budget for street cleaning is increasing significantly, from around £13 million to £31 million. But councillors heard that comparable spending elsewhere suggests Birmingham would need around £41 million simply to provide the level of service residents should expect.
That figure also fails to reflect the scale of the task Birmingham now faces after years of poor performance and underinvestment. The council is not starting with clean streets and trying to keep them clean but with a huge backlog of problems across the city.
The scale of fly-tipping illustrates the challenge. Annual reported incidents have risen from around 23,000 a year before Covid to more than 33,000. But officers have previously indicated that only around one in five incidents may actually be reported, suggesting the true scale of dumping across Birmingham is far greater than the official figures show.
Despite this, councillors heard that the new street-cleaning model depends on a series of major assumptions, including the end of the ongoing waste dispute, fly-tipping falling back towards pre-Covid levels and ending the Mobile Household Waste Centre service used by residents to dispose of waste locally.
Birmingham Conservatives warned that this leaves the plan built on wishful thinking rather than the resources needed to guarantee cleaner streets.
Cllr Richard Parkin said:
“Residents do not need to be told Birmingham has a street-cleaning problem, they can see it every time they leave their homes.
“What was alarming at scrutiny was hearing just how fragile the plan to fix it appears to be. Officers themselves said they were appalled by the service currently being provided.
“Yes, the increase from around £13 million to £31 million is significant and welcome. But if comparable councils suggest Birmingham needs around £41 million, we are still trying to clean one of Britain’s biggest cities with substantially less than the job requires’’.
‘’The street cleansing budget for the next three years remains woefully inadequate and represents only two thirds of what is needed. Worse still, it does not reflect the years of catching up Birmingham now has to do’’.
“The plan is already behind schedule and appears to rely on almost everything going right: the waste dispute ending, consistent bin collections, fly-tipping falling dramatically and an extremely popular mobile waste service being withdrawn. That should concern everyone who wants Birmingham to succeed. We cannot afford another few years of incremental improvement while rubbish, litter and fly-tipping continue to damage neighbourhoods and Birmingham’s reputation.”
‘’If the council is serious about cleaning up our streets it would be taking serious action now, backed by sufficient funding, not embarking on this piecemeal approach which is subject to so many assumptions’’
Councillor Robert Alden (Con, Erdington) Leader of the Conservative Group, called for the retention of the Mobile Household Waste Service
“Residents will be baffled at the logic of withdrawing the Mobile Household Waste Centres at a time Birmingham is facing an epidemic of illegal dumping. Thousands of residents rely on the service to responsibly dispose of their bulky waste and they have provided extremely popular. The council should not be choosing between this and more litter pickers, it should be doing both.
"Clean streets are one of the most basic services a council provides. Residents pay their council tax and have every right to expect their streets to be clean. Indeed when the Conservatives last led the council, Birmingham was voted the UK’s cleanest city, yet now that label seems a million years away".
“Birmingham needs a properly funded and credible plan to get the city clean and keep it clean. Street cleaning must be treated as a priority, not something we simply hope will improve if a series of optimistic assumptions come true.”
