Edinburgh councillor slams 'cosmetic' £750,000 deep clean over side street neglect

An Edinburgh councillor has hit out at the city's £750,000 deep clean scheme, warning it will only bring 'cosmetic' improvements to Gorgie's streets.

Ross McKenzie, who represents the area as an independent, questioned why side streets loaded with rubbish were not being treated in the council's flagship Edinburgh Refresh project. Crews have been out in force across the city in a one-off effort to spruce up pavements.

The works have included power-washing, removal of chewing gum and weeding with the city centre, central Leith and Portobello among the areas already visited. Teams arrived in Gorgie this week to tackle Gorgie Road and Dalry Road. Work is being carried out on a zone stretching from the Kaspa's dessert shop to Haymarket.

But Cllr McKenzie was dismayed to see that the cleaning teams would not visit the likes of Smithfield Street and West Park Place - despite pictures showing they are teeming with junk.

He told the Evening News: "I was looking forward to it coming to Gorgie because we've got pretty serious waste and cleansing issues so I was disappointed to see that it was only going to be focused on the pavements of the high streets because we've got bigger problems elsewhere that need to be dealt with.

"On Smithfield Street, there's a kind of deep filth that runs along the side of the kerb. There's also issues with the bin hubs and a lot of deep filth tends to accumulate around those.

"A lot of the bin hubs are actually quite close to the main road so they wouldn't have to come far off the main road to do that but they are just going past those areas that need it most.

"My concern is that this is cosmetic rather than actually dealing with the more serious waste and cleansing issues that exist on the side streets. There's one-off funding so I suspect that it's not coming back.

"I praise some of the work that has been done in terms of creating the bin hubs. That's been pretty successful in Gorgie and Dalry. We have seen some improvements as part of that project.

"But there is a need for permanent extra resource, particularly in my area which is the fly-tipping capital of Edinburgh. If you look at the fly-tipping stats, there is a tendency of businesses and individuals to dump stuff around the hubs. The council staff do a fantastic job but they need more permanent resources rather than this one-off spit polish."

Cllr McKenzie also unhappy with the 'outsourcing' of the job to a contractor from the Midlands, which he said conflicted with administration policy.

He added: "This Labour administration and this transport convener are supposed to have an in-housing agenda. They're supposed to be creating direct council jobs in waste and cleansing but they've chosen to go out to a private company to do this work."

Responding, transport and environment convener Scott Arthur said: “We’re committed to keeping our city clean for our residents. As part of our Edinburgh Refresh programme, we're investing £750,000 this year in giving our town centres a deep clean. This includes power washing streets, removing chewing gum, weeds and fly tipping.

“This work is part of street cleaning measures, including gully cleaning, fly tipping, street sweeping and graffiti removal which was supported by an additional £3million of funding at the February 2023 budget.

"Unfortunately, Cllr McKenzie supported the unsuccessful SNP/Green budget which would have seen only an additional £200k allocated to this key service. Just £200k extra would not have helped get the city back on track, or meet the needs of Gorgie.

“I’d like to see this programme expanded as much as possible for our city’s streets, but at the moment we’re focussing our limited resources on our main thoroughfares. Nonetheless, if he now supports getting street cleansing in Edinburgh back on track, I would be interested in any suggestion Cllr McKenzie has to expand this work via the February 2024 budget.”