Waste complaints made during Edinburgh festival season fall by nearly a third

The number of complaints about rubbish made during festival season in Edinburgh fell by nearly a third this year.

City of Edinburgh Council had to deal with 32% fewer calls about street cleaning, fly-tipping, dog fouling and communal bins during August compared to the same period in 2016.

The local authority put additional resources in place throughout the month to help deal with the huge rise influx of visitors, including an extra 40 extra workers joining the existing 90 to provide services around the clock.

Transport and Environment Convener, Councillor Lesley Macinnes, said: "These are encouraging figures, they demonstrate the impact our efforts to improve waste and cleansing services are having, not just in the centre but across the city.

"By increasing resources around the busy festival period we have been able to cope better with demand, but we want to continue to target issues like litter and fly-tipping throughout the year.

"While we are working on actions to achieve this, we also need the help of the public, so I would encourage people to take responsibility for their rubbish and help make Edinburgh a clean, welcoming place, whatever the season.''

A 65-point Waste and Cleansing Improvement Plan was approved by the Council's Transport and Environment Committee in November 2016.

It aims to address poor quality in the waste collection and street cleansing services by focusing on aspects such as waste collection routing, workforce training and communal bin provision.

In the city centre, which sees a sharp rise in visitors over the 2017 festival period, complaints were halved - falling by 53%.

The local authority had also put in place frequent litter bin collections and increased patrols by environmental wardens to discourage litter-dropping and fly-tipping