Canterbury Councillor says litter problem makes Wincheap an Urban Slum

A Canterbury Councillor blasted the state of Wincheap’s litter problem during the Canterbury forum this week calling it an “urban slum.”

“It’s our job to clear it up and we’re just not doing it. We’ve completely lost the plot and you’ve only got to look around Canterbury to see that. Whether it’s litter or whether it’s graffiti. It’s dire, absolutely dire, and I’m deeply embarrassed about being a Wincheap councillor living in an Urban Slum because nothing is being done to deal graffiti or with the litter.” Cllr. Eden-Green said.

During the presentation Cllr. Nick Eden-Green commented that the results of street cleaning this year in Canterbury was “nothing to be proud of” and was an “inditement of failure.” The councillor was particularly unimpressed with the state of his own ward’s litter problem.

Helly Langley, a volunteer litter picker, was also unimpressed by the review. Mrs Langley has been picking litter for over 3 years and was thanked personally by the Forum chair during the meeting. “The problem is immense and growing,” said Mrs Langley. One particular issue raised was that the council could not clean the Rheims way due to it being a 40MPH road so could only be cleaned by restricting the road to one lane.

Mrs Langley currently litter picks along this road weekly and felt this was a poor excuse by the council. “No one takes responsibility for anything other than their specific job; bins are emptied but rubbish is left.” Mrs Langley went on to say. She also felt that the council had no strategy for maintaining Canterbury in the long term. “It’s a world heritage city, yet it’s filthy and uncared for and the only conclusion is that the council doesn’t really care despite what was said.”

The presentation led by lead officer David Ford outlined proposals for future arrangements for street cleaning. One of the proposals was the creation of a new company to take responsibility for managing street cleaning services as of 2021. Other topics included litter bins, fly-tipping and graffiti. Mr Ford assured the councillors that there was a plan to improve the cleaning services going forward. The main plan was to implement technology into the service with bins that can automatically report when they are full and an app that allows the public to report when litter bins are full.