Call For Merton Council To Bin Off Its Street Cleaners


Debate due at council meeting after complaints over litter problems

A call is being made for Merton Council's street cleaners Veolia to be sacked after complaints including missed rubbish collections and overflowing bins.

A group of Merton's Conservative councillors have submitted a motion for tomorrow's full council meeting (November 22) calling for the contract with Veolia to be "discontinued".

They have pointed out that a six monthformance review of the new Veolia contract considered by the Sustainable Communities scrutiny panel earlier this month, which included a number of findings:

 Bin collection target missed for each of the last four months.

 Street litter target missed every month since April.

 Increased detritus in the streets.

 Green sacks left uncollected after the street sweeping.

 Bins not being emptied frequently enough.

 Failure to remove fly tips within 24 hours.

 Backlog in clearing graffiti from public land.

They said in the motion: "Merton’s residents are increasingly frustrated by the state of our local streets, parks and town centres with overflowing bins, fly tipping, graffiti, un-swept streets and missed rubbish collections becoming an all too familiar sight."

The motion goes on to call for Veolia to be sacked, as well as the reintroduction of weekly street cleaning following the refuse vehicle on the same day. The full motion reads:

Council calls on the Cabinet to:

a) Reintroduce weekly street cleaning of residential roads and ensure street sweepers follow after the refuse vehicle on the same day;

b) Protect the weekly bin collection and reverse plans to move to a fortnightly service from October 2018;

c) Increase the use of mobile CCTV to crack down on graffiti and fly tipping;

d) Discontinue their contract with Veolia as a result of the sustained performance failures experienced so far but without incurring further financial cost to the Council.

Do you agree? Why not comment on our forum?

November 21, 2017

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A recent picture of St Mark's Place in Wimbledon town centre. Pic by @theAlexSW19