Good idea for litter blitz 'killed by Fife Council bureaucracy'

That’s the claim of Councillor Dave Dempsey, Tory leader on Fife Council, who says the authority have backed away from a local ‘hit squad’ idea aimed at tackling grime hotspots in communities.

A total of £250,000 was set aside in the council budget to tackle problem areas and keep the Kingdom clean.

But Councillor Dempsey says instead of providing local squads for each area to tidy up eyesores quickly, a centralised team will take months to tackle the whole of Fife.

He said: “My area will be visited in September, so we need to schedule any unexpected problems for nine months from now.

“This is a classic example of how a good local idea is drawn into the centre and reduced to a bureaucratic shadow of what it might have been.

“We all know that Fife Council’s budget for keeping streets and open spaces clean and tidy has been slashed in recent years. It’s politically easier to make cuts there than in education and social work. So, a year ago, I asked the local team what they needed and was told they’d like a ‘Hit Squad’ that could step in to cover for illness and generally deal with the unexpected as and when it arose.

“However, we now find that there’s a single Hit Squad for the whole of Fife, based centrally and scheduled to visit a different area each month.

“So, instead of a local squad, able to intervene quickly when necessary, we have one that’ll spend half its day travelling.

“The Conservatives will try to reinstate the original proposal in next month’s budget.”

The council have confirmed that, as of October 9, they have two Environmental Action Teams in place targeting neglected areas with the £250,000 funding a squad of dedicated deep cleaning staff.

The team will tackle local environmental problem areas which aren’t currently being cleaned or serviced as part of the normal programme of work.

The 10 staff will be employed on a permanent basis carrying out specific street-cleaning duties.

Council co-leader David Alexander told the Press: “We now have two additional teams as well as the teams that carry out our normal programme of work because the administration granted extra funding to the parks, streets and open spaces department from the budget,” he said.

“Rather than just putting another person in the teams we already have, we are doing something to tackle particular areas that need more attention.

“This was not Dave’s idea. It was council officer Damien Woods’, and this is just another example of the Conservatives scrambling for credit. I find it ridiculous.”

Damien Woods, service manager at Fife Council, said: “The purpose and intention of the Environmental Action Teams has always been for squads to work with no boundaries, cleaning up and tidying everything within an area, except privately-owned land. They will work within an area for as long as it takes to thoroughly complete that area.

“The teams are not centralised and are organic as they will be systematically working their way through Fife, once complete, they will just start back over again. Elected members will be provided with a full report on the work which has been completed after each clean-up.

“We want to make a difference to our communities, giving back a sense of pride by providing a clean place to live, work, visit and do business, that Fifers can be proud of.”