Walking through Southwark at the moment, you can’t help but see the piles of bin bags and litter on almost every street.
Whilst the Labour Council is busy consulting with itself on how the Borough will look in 2030 – they’ve forgotten one of their most basic tasks – to keep Southwark clean!
This past month I have been highlighting flytipping and overflowing bins to the council on an almost daily basis – often in wards represented by Labour councillors who should be doing this.
These piles of rubbish are not just an eyesore (and stink especially in our recent hot weather), they are a serious public health risk.
Rat infestations have sky-rocketed in Southwark in the past few years and that’s no surprises when you look at the state of our streets.
Southwark now has the UK’s second highest rat infestation.
That’s why the Southwark Liberal Democrats are launching a petition calling on Labour to take this issue seriously, and clean up Southwark’s streets.
Labour’s insistence that they are keeping the streets clean is baffling and borderline insulting to residents.
At the last full council, they claimed they clean up 98 per cent of all flytipping reports within 24 hours. Our councillor Rachel Bentley exposed that claim as false the same evening as the council had failed to respond to any of the reports she made 24 hours before.
With resources stretched, it’s vital that councils do the basics right to meet the needs of residents. Birmingham’s bankruptcy was caused, in part, by a failure to do the “boring things”.
Here in Southwark we also suffer from a Labour Council that would prefer to pursue expensive pet projects and endless, far-fetched strategies than address the immediate concerns of normal people.
What is the point in obsessing about 2030 while we’re up to our eyes in bin bags and rats right her in 2023?
Southwark Labour needs to accept the importance of the boring basics, starting with cleaning up our streets.
They can start by taking the lead from Liberal Democrat-run Kingston, who are leading the way with a technology based approach to reducing flytipping.
But until then, the Southwark Liberal Democrats will keep fighting for a cleaner borough.
We need your support to force Labour to do the right thing, if you agree Southwark residents deserve clean streets sign the petition and join our campaign now.
Go to bit.ly/CleanUpSouthwark to sign the petition.
Southwark has turned into a rat infested hovel under Keiron Williams. My own street has not been cleaned for over three months. Every street you go down is covered in litter. The parasites at Tooley St can find enough money for pointless cycle lanes, but refuse to clear rubbish. Yet the brain dead will still vote Labour because they are ‘working class’…………………..