Richard Baum

At the council meeting on Wednesday night I asked the Executive Member for Environment about the promised “deep-clean” of Prestwich Village. You may remember that this was promised for the end of 2007 at a meeting of the Local Area Partnership in the autumn. The promise came after growing frustration with the state of cleanliness on our local streets, and the enormous amounts of grime that have accumulated in the Precinct recently.

The deep-clean didn’t happen, despite our continuing calls. A broken promise by the Tory Council. So we kept up the pressure and demanded that street-cleaning managers came to the last meeting of the LAP and lay down a firm commitment to getting the deep-clean done. They said that it would be done by the end of January.

On Wednesday night, the Tory Council confirmed what we already know, which is that it wasn’t done. And, worse, they refuse now to give us a date when it will be done.

This is an absolute disgrace.

I was fuming on Wednesday night, and I am fuming now. This is a blatant example of the Tory Council betraying local people with a disgraceful service and yet another broken promise. Local people don’t ask for much - all we want is our streets clean. But the Tories admit that there hasn’t been a deep-clean of Prestwich Village in FIVE YEARS. And despite promising TWICE that one would be done, it hasn’t.

On Wedensday night we were promised “meetings” to discuss cleaning the area. We don’t want meetings! We want clean streets! We want the basic service we pay our taxes for to be given to us.

This Council is failing to provide even the most basic of services to local people, and are hiding their inaction and broken promises with even more empty promises! It simply isn’t on, and our pressure for a thorough clean of Prestwich will go on.

Rick