Calls for more cleansing workers to be brought back to Glasgow communities

A Scottish Labour MSP wants to see the return of street sweepers, to help the maintenance of Glasgow's roads.

Paul Sweeney is calling on the council to bring designated cleansing workers for routes in the city, in a bid to begin fixing problems in communities more immediately, without people having to write to the council.

The proposal would see a member of staff covering the same area of the city every shift, allowing them to create a relationship with the people living there, so problems could be passed to them directly.

Mr Sweeney said: “A bit like somebody delivering your mail, you’d have someone who was routinely sweeping the streets, you’d have that relationship.

"We need to reinvest in our people"

“I remember it as a kid, you’d have folk coming around in Milton cleaning the streets, maintaining them, and you would get to know them, and if there were issues you could go and speak to them.

“That just doesn’t happen anymore, we need to reinvest in our people.”

The GMB union covers cleansing workers in the city, and they are urging the council to hire more staff to cover routes more consistently.

They say the workers bring more to the city than just their work.

Chris Mitchell from the union said: “They’re not just a cleansing worker, he’s like a tour guide, somebody pulls up, they can tell you every street, what direction to go to.

"They're not just a cleansing worker"

“He’s also good for local businesses as well, because people come into the city maybe to do business, looking for a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, they can point people in the right direction of cafes.

“I think that’s something that’s been lost.”

Mr Sweeney is also warning of the toll it can take on people’s mental health, when they live in an area which is not well maintained.

He said: “We’ve seen from the Glasgow Centre for Population Health that vacant, derelict land, dilapidation, poor maintenance of the city, has an impact.

“People, their self-esteem is damaged, their sense of pride is damaged, and that can just lead to an acceptance of decline and decay, and their own psychology is affected by that.”

"People get fed up"

Mr Mitchell echoed this, saying: “It can become depressing, mentally and physically it is challenging for people in the morning to look out the window, particularly on a dark, dreary day, and they’re seeing there’s weeds about everywhere, the drains are all blocked, there’s rubbish lying everywhere.

“People just become complacent; people get fed up.”

A Glasgow City Council spokesperson said: “We have staff working every day in neighbourhoods throughout the city to sweep streets, empty street bins and remove fly-tipping.

“Places with high footfall such as shopping areas and around school communities will have dedicated teams and our 5500 street bins will emptied in line with their expected use.

“Our deep clean teams, who work to remove grime, accumulations of litter and weeds, move from city ward to city ward on a carefully programmed, rolling schedule.

“Glasgow runs the largest street cleansing operation in Scotland and continues to spend more per head of population on street cleansing than almost every other local authority in the country.”

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