Confidential details of changes to park and street cleaning in the borough would leave people ‘flabbergasted’ if they found out, the leader of Ealing’s Liberal Democrats has said.
Gary Malcolm said councillors were gagged at a scrutiny meeting on Thursday last week from giving full details of changes to the £15million Enterprise environmental services contract. Members of the public or press were not allowed to be present while these conversations took place to protect commercially sensitive information.
Leader of the Lib Dems, Gary Malcolm, said: “There will be a number of parks and open spaces that will be maintained less but the council are refusing to say which and, in my view, the number that will be maintained the same is small.
“The council have allowed the contractor to do less work but be paid the same.
“I am sickened by how Ealing Council can do this behind closed doors.”
Labour councillor and cabinet member for environment and transport, Bassam Mahfouz, said the plans would improve the service, cutting the number of missed collections and going back to cleaning the streets the day after the binmen had been.
Mr Mahfouz said there would be no change to how much Enterprise will be paid but admitted the council has reduced the number of ‘deep cleans’ in parks, which include washing bins and paths. He said there will still be the same number of litter collections in parks so they will be just as clean.
Conservative councillors said more than 80 parks will no longer be deep cleaned as regularly.
Conservative spokeswoman, Councillor Ann Chapman, said: “Taxpayers are paying a premium for a lower specification service and the failures of the badly managed commercial contract.”
Mr Mahfouz said: “We want to make the specification right – not too much or too little.
“We are massively investing in our parks and people tell us we have the best improved parks in the country. We would not be doing this if the impact was negative, especially as we want more Green Flags this year.
“Under the Tories there were no deep cleans for the parks at all.”
He said new street cleaning supervisors will each manage two wards and will be in their area every day and the council is introducing new street cleaning machines for streets and parks.
The council said 33 sites will be deep cleaned four times a year and the rest on an annual basis.
It introduced deep cleans in parks throughout the borough two years ago.
Street cleaning the day after rubbish collections began this week. The rest of the changes will take place within the next few weeks.
