‘Clean-up’ plans mess

Published: 26 November, 2010

• WESTMINSTER City Council has been forced to scrap plans to make every resident and business clean up the front of their property after being told that the plans would be illegal.

The plans, hatched at a secret meeting of the “High Level Group” of Conservative councillors and officers on August 23 and subsequently leaked to Labour councillors, were aimed at making savings of “£14million” if the council adopted “frontager obligation proposals whereby residents take responsibility for cleansing the areas outside their properties”.

The proposal were also included in the council’s “consultation” document A Living City in Tough Times announced on November 5, which said: “We want to encourage greater local responsibility for street cleansing and will consider ways of getting people to take more care with the area in front of their home or business.”

Now the city council has backtracked and says that, “After looking at the proposals we decided they were impractical and illegal. We would have required legislation to do it, we could not use bye-laws.”

The Conservatives are in total confusion on cleaning the streets of Westminster. The madcap “do-it-yourself council” proposal to stop cleaning the pavements and expect residents and business to do it, was never going to work.

Yet it was discussed at secret meetings and even included in the council’s cuts “consultation” report. Now, two weeks later, they realise that it is all illegal. 

What sort of council are the Conservatives running and why don’t they do some basic homework before launching foolish plans?

CLLR PAUL DIMOLDENBERG
Leader of the Labour Group