Cllr Claudia Webbe, Executive Member for Environment & Transport, writes about Islington Labour’s commitment to keeping the streets clean and tidy.

One month after the local elections, where Islington Labour received the overwhelming support of local people to deliver our ambitious plans for a fairer borough, I’m delighted to announce that we have implemented our first manifesto pledge.

We know that Islington residents are proud of our borough and we want to keep it looking its best. Keeping Islington clean and tidy was one of our pledges to local people in our bold manifesto, and from this week residents will now see street cleaning services out every day, Monday to Friday across all local streets, with continuing 7 day a week services on main roads.

The new service will also see street sweepers given their own ‘beats’, so residents will have their own dedicated street sweepers for their neighbourhood, and includes a cleansing visit after refuse crews have collected recycling and household waste. There are also three borough-wide graffiti removal teams and two extra pavement pressure washers, to help keep the main roads even cleaner.

Despite ongoing massive cuts by the Tory Government – which will see Islington Council lose 70 per cent of its core central government funding between 2010 and 2020 – Islington Labour is committed to protecting frontline services, like street cleaning and weekly bin collections. I’m proud of our commitment to protect services local people care about.

In my position as Executive Member for Transport and Environment, I’ll be working on a variety of important issues over the next four years, including taking steps to tackle air pollution, tackling fuel poverty, creating Healthy Streets, delivering improvements to cycling infrastructure and continuing to improve recycling rates (which are already higher than other Inner London boroughs).

Islington Labour will always put the views and concerns of local people at the heart of all that we do, and I am committed to delivering on the issues residents care about. Increasing street cleaning services is the first of many manifesto pledges our Labour-led Council will be delivering for residents.