EXCLUSIVE: Council leader orders Glasgow graffiti blitz

Susan Aitken says cleansing teams will tackle offensive graffiti first

Author: Rob WallerPublished 27th Apr 2021

Glasgow city council is ordering a 'blitz' on graffiti in the city centre, just a week after cleansing service bosses made a promise to Clyde News to clean up the city.

In an exclusive interview with Clyde 1 council leader Susan Aitken says cleansing teams are working at full capacity again following the pandemic and are targeting offensive graffiti as their first priority.

"Now they're back up to full shift we've got plans for a city centre clean-up, for a blitz on graffiti," she said.

"We've got a city services team who are focussed on supporting businesses."

"People will start to see that right now, the graffiti teams are back up and running.

Offensive graffiti first

"They still have to socially-distance so they probably can't work as fast as they used to, but they are out there targeting offensive graffiti in the first instance.

"They'll get round to all the reported incidences right across the city but they will also be out in the city centre proactively addressing any issues that they come across there."

Her comments come in the wake of our exclusive survey which showed 9 out of 10 people think Glasgow is a dirty city

It also found more than 95% (96.2%) of people think there is more fly-tipping in Glasgow than ever before and that not enough is being done to clean it up.

There's been stinging criticism from the GMB union about a lack of investment in cleansing services and a call for a "deep clean" before the COP26 UN climate change summit at the SEC in November.

Susan Aitken is hitting back saying: "There have been huge reforms in the cleansing service and a lot of investment in new, bigger capacity street bins.

"A lot of those are going to become solar bins, with sensors in them, so we can tell when they are full."

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