Leaders get out to inspect street cleaning (From Times Series)

Leaders get out to inspect street cleaning

11:43am Wednesday 9th August 2006

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THE new leadership of Ealing Council is continuing its shake-up of services by making personal checks on street cleaning teams.

Leader Councillor Jason Stacey vowed to clean up the borough in his Tory party manifesto pledge.

Now he has promised to personally inspect Ealing streets to ensure they are being kept clean to the right standard and make sure workers for cleaning contractors ECT are up to scratch.

He said: "It is no use sitting in the Town Hall commenting on whether streets are clean or not. The only effective way of judging this is getting out and about yourself and seeing it with your own eyes. This is equally true for politicians as well as senior council officers and managers at ECT."

The spot checks will last around two hours and be held around every ten days between now and Christmas.

In February council watchdog, the Audit Commission, revealed Ealing had the fourth dirtiest, most heavily littered streets in all of London's 33 boroughs.

Performance indicators showed 35 per cent of Ealing's streets and open spaces were "significantly or heavily littered".

Under the new scheme, called Reality Checks, Cllr Stacey will take staff from the council and ECT with him, so if any problems are found they can be "dealt with immediately".

He said: "I shall be ensuring that all areas of the borough are covered. It is important that each location of the spot check is announced at the last moment so when we turn up we can see the areas as they really are. Where we find standards not up to scratch we will be insisting on immediate action."

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