£20 Million Glasgow Funding

GMB Says £20 Million Glasgow Funding Can Help Restore ‘Dear Green Place’ 

GMB Scotland has welcomed Glasgow City Council’s (GCC) budget announcement confirming a £20 million jobs and service investment plan to help tackle the city’s growing cleansing crisis.

Amid a £53 million funding gap and a decade of austerity on local government finances, GCC has allocated £6 million to street cleaning, £6.5 million to bin collections and £8 million towards road and pavement repairs, creating 140 new jobs in Land and Environmental Services (LES).

Over the last few months GMB Scotland’s ‘dirty cuts’ campaign has exposed the shocking working conditions and levels of waste that council workers are encountering on a daily basis across Glasgow and has called for urgent interventions at council and Scottish government levels.

GMB Scotland Organiser Benny Rankin said: “Over the last few years, the communities of our ‘dear green place’ have become swamped with unsustainable levels of waste against a backdrop of service cuts.

For our members it’s meant their working lives have become a health and safety nightmare, where contending with drug dens, human waste and vermin has become a daily occurrence.

GCC have recognised this cannot continue without challenge and this investment will help ease the pressure on a workforce pushed to its absolute limits and, hopefully, will be the start of a wider political response to this crisis.

Filthy streets and pot holed roads are a consequence of a decade of council cuts but this is only a part of Scotland’s austerity shame – our local services are at breaking point or beyond all over the country.

Let’s be clear that while we welcome GCC’s response in LES, it’s high time for an honest debate about the future of local government at the Scottish Government level.”

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Contact: GMB Scotland Officer Benny Rankin on 07912 560808 or Peter Welsh, GMB Scotland Communications on 07976 447077.