Southwark Labour Rejects More Street Cleaning, Customer Services Staff

Southwark Labour on Wednesday evening voted down a budget amendment that would have increased investment in council customer services and street cleaning teams.

The Southwark Liberal Democrats proposed the budget amendment, which would have seen more customer services staff hired to help reshape the council’s contact centre.

It also would have employed more officers to deal with street cleaning, alongside a new fly-tipping enforcement team to hand out fines for dumped waste.

Furthermore, the amendment suggested creating a climate action team and providing training on the subject to all council staff. These policies intended to hurry up and expand Labour climate action.

Southwark Labour councillors, nonetheless, voted down the amendment at the council assembly.

Commenting, Cllr Dan Whitehead, Southwark Liberal Democrat finance spokesperson said:

“Southwark residents are sick of Labour ignoring them and refusing to listen to complaints regarding basic services. We can see that our streets are getting dirtier, that phone calls from constituents are being left unanswered, and that Labour continues to dither and delay on climate change. The party could have changed its attitude on all of this, but decided to snub residents instead by voting down our amendment.”