South Wales Evening Post - 6 April 2007
Litter is going uncollected from the streets of Swansea because of a lack of council investment and reductions in staff levels, according to a union.
Unison officials allege the service is suffering from a severe shortage of workers and that morale among the street cleaners has reached rock bottom.
It is understood that the council cleaning teams are short of eight members of staff.
Nicholas Symons, joint branch secretary of Unison, the public-sector union, said morale among workers was the worst he had come across in his 16 years of service.
"Areas of the city are not getting cleaned because of a lack of manning," he said.
"These are some of the council's lowest-paid workers, they are being asked to do more work and morale is low.
"They do a sterling job - you should see the state of the streets after a Friday or Saturday night - but the service is being squeezed.
"We have been undermanned for the past 12 months, and when people leave they are not being replaced."
One member of the street cleaning team added: "The boys are really cheesed-off at the way we are being treated."
Earlier this week the Post highlighted the rubbish-strewn Fabian Way which will greet visitors coming to Swansea for an Easter break.
The story prompted a flurry of letters and emails to the paper calling for litter collections to be improved. Other problem areas are said to include the Plasmarl bypass currently strewn with rubbish and parts of Llansamlet. Swansea Council confirmed that it is hiring new workers to help tackle the city's litter problem.
However, a spokesman denied the service was being under-funded, and said the authority was making better use of its existing cleaning machines as well as buying new smaller machines that could negotiate Swansea's crowded streets.
He said: "The council is in the process of recruiting staff to fill approximately eight positions within the cleansing service.
"These posts will be filled once interviews are completed.
"These interviews are scheduled to take place in the next few weeks.
"The council spends more than £2.5 million a year cleaning streets and clearing up after people who carelessly drop litter instead of putting it in litter bins."
