Keep Scotland Beautiful inspectors award Edinburgh its best-ever rating for the cleanliness of its streets

Published on Friday 20 November 2009 10:14

LITTER levels are at a record low in areas of the city covered by private contractors while standards are slipping elsewhere in the Capital, new figures have shown.

Despite the ongoing bin dispute, Keep Scotland Beautiful gave the city centre its best-ever rating for the cleanliness of its streets following an inspection last month.

However, many areas outwith the city centre – which are not being cleaned by private contractors brought in as a result of the dispute – saw their ratings fall.

The council today said improvements in the city centre were as a result of the increased use of handbarrows and more staff cleaning the city centre at night. But the improvement led to calls for the council to consider permanently privatising the service.

Inspectors gave the city centre an overall score of 70 out of 100 after assessing levels of litter, dog fouling, graffiti, flyposting and flytipping.

It is the highest-ever score awarded to the city centre, beating the 67 awarded for August when private contractors were drafted in to deal with the increased litter generated by the Festival.

In contrast, the south of the city saw its overall rating fall from 74 in June to a "disappointing" 66 in September, while the north of the city, including areas such as Leith Walk, saw its rating tumble from 71 to 67 and an increase in fly-tipping and dumping.

Earlier this month it emerged the council had already begun drawing up plans which could see Edinburgh's bin collections completely privatised.

The city's bin men have been on a work-to-rule for more than four months over pay reform proposals that they claim will lose them thousands of pounds.

Councillor Iain Whyte, the city's Conservative leader, today said the results added weight to suggestions that the council should investigate permanently privatising the service. He said: "It certainly adds to the argument for testing the market to see what kind of service we could get. Those who claim that private companies give a worse service have been shown that this is not necessarily the case. That said, I've no idea what the resource levels are and how they compare – it really needs a proper tendering process to see who are offering the best services at the proper price."

Councillor Robert Aldridge, the city's environment leader, said: "I am delighted that these latest figures show that the city centre has continued to maintain its high scores for cleanliness and I think everyone would agree it looks fantastic.

"Our staff have been working extremely hard to keep the city at its best."

Rubbish survey reveals a mixed bag

THE city achieved an overall score of 70 out of 100 following the latest inspection by Keep Scotland Beautiful.

Inspectors visited 507 sites and found that 88 per cent of streets surveyed to be clean.

The city centre scored its best-ever result, improving from 67 to 70.

There were mixed results elsewhere, with the north of the city seeing its score fall from 71 in June to 67 in September.

However, it was the south of the city which saw the most marked decline, recording a score of 66, compared to 74 just a few months earlier.

The survey also said that the percentage of streets attaining the acceptable standard for cleanliness dropped from 93 per cent to 84 per cent.