Glasgow has a cleansing crisis. That may seem like a stark comment but take a walk around the city, and it’ll very quickly become clear that it’s true.
Glasgow, meaning ‘dear green place’, has always been renowned for its green spaces and beautiful parks. However, quickly overtaking this view is the amount of fly-tipping we have seen in the past year.
In October 2020, Glasgow was dubbed the fly-tipping capital of the UK. Certainly not an accolade to be put alongside the many other great ones we have as a city. Nonetheless, surely the local council would introduce measures to mitigate this issue…
Glasgow City Council is run by an SNP minority, which Councillor Susan Aitken leads. Since Glasgow being dubbed the fly-tipping capital of the UK, Cllr. Aitken and her administration have introduced a three-weekly green bin collection and a bulk uplift charge of £35. When the three-weekly bin collection was trialled, even then, there was problems and concerns raised by residents, trade unions and community groups.
Most green bins are over-flowing within two weeks, and a bulk uplift charge is unbelievable and will most certainly put a strain on families already in financial difficulty across Glasgow. Despite the countless images and videos of overflowing bins, fly-tipping, litter blowing in our streets and vermin running about where the children of our city play, the SNP have chosen to charge refuse collections and expect people to wait, close to a month for their green bin to be emptied.
In January 2021, Councillor Anna Richardson, city convener for sustainability and carbon reduction, said: “There is already less waste going into general bins and greater use being made of the recycling bins” – unfortunately, the evidence proves otherwise.
In March 2021, the council leader launched a campaign for Glaswegians to clean up Glasgow. Their arrogance shows through in such that they don’t know it was their policies that have caused the issue at hand.
In November this year, Glasgow is set to host the biggest conference this country will ever see, drawing people from across the world – leaders, dignitaries and people who care. The people of Glasgow and I don’t want them to be welcomed by the state our streets are currently in. Instead, we should welcome them to that ‘dear green place’, with no overflowing bins because we have returned to a two weekly green bin collection, and with no abandoned fly-tipping because the council has scrapped their £35 bulk uplift charge.
The Glasgow Conservative and Unionist group on Glasgow City Council have begun a campaign to clean up the city and are urging people to stand with them to sign a petition that will call on the SNP to think again.
