Edinburgh clean-up: council invests £3 million in initiatives to tackle litter, graffiti, flytipping and dumping

Extra staff and specialist equipment to help clean up the Capital

A specialist team of graffiti busters is being set up in the Capital and low-income families will get free bulky uplifts as part of a £3 million clean-up of the city.

A new rapid response cleansing unit will tackle waste in the city centre seven days a week, emptying litter bins, removing dumped items and dealing with emergencies. Four extra vehicles will be deployed to tackle flytipping in areas served by communal bins. And spending on gully clearing will be increased by 50 per cent in a bid to prevent local flooding.

The plans will go to the city’s transport and environment committee for approval on Thursday April 20. Committee convener Scott Arthur said the initiatives were responding to public concern. He said: “We have ongoing concerns from residents about the state of some of our streets and public areas in our city, particularly flytipping. graffiti and gully clearing. We're saying on all these things – as we are with road maintenance – that we've listened to the public and we acknowledge that perhaps these services haven't had the resources they needed in the past and now it's about fixing that.”

Flytipping is one of the problems to be targeted by the £3 million clean-up initiative.

The latest independent general cleanliness figures show Edinburgh has improved since the Covid period, with 85.9 per cent of sites tested having little or no litter. Cllr Arthur said: “Within the existing budget, the team has been able to improve performance in the city and when you compare Edinburgh to other similar local authorities we're well above average. That hard work by the staff gives us the confidence to spend a bit more money, knowing it will lead to further improvement.”

Around £530,000 will go on the new dedicated team of graffiti busters, which will see six new posts created with at least two specialist vehicles. They will focus on removing graffiti from public buildings, but with a longer-term ability to sell services to private building owners.

Special uplifts of bulky items, such as old sofas and unwanted furniture, will become free for families who receive council tax reduction. The current charge is £5 per item, but the cost is seen as one cause of increased flytipping by people who decide to dump their bulky items in the street rather than pay for an uplift. A total of £500,000 has been set aside for the initiative, which is expected to come into effect from October.

Improvements in the city centre will see a new rapid response service to complement the existing street cleansing barrow routes. A vehicle working seven days a week will be able to empty litter bins, deal with bulky items and respond to emergency situations. And walk-behind mechanical sweepers will be trialled on existing barrow routes. The cost is estimated at £180,000 and an extra four posts will be created.

The battle against flytipping will mean an extra 16 staff and four additional vehicles, which will focus on high-density areas served by communal bins where flytipping is a particular problem. The council says it should mean dumped items are removed within 48 hours of being reported. The initiative has been allocated £290,000.

There will also be a dedicated team to tackle approach roads into the city and rural roads after the cleanliness and appearance of these routes was found to have a negative effect on the city’s cleanliness rating. This team will be tasked with co-ordination of traffic management measures to allow for litter picking, mechanical sweeping, gully emptying, and verge and hedge maintenance, with £300,000 allocate to create a team of five staff and purchase of necessary equipment.

Another 30 posts are being created at a cost of £840,000 to ensure enough sickness and absence cover for priority tasks such as rapid response. And a night-shift operation will undertake street washing and graffiti removal from litter bins in city and town centres, with three additional staff to supplement existing night shift workers at a cost of £100,000.

Cllr Arthur said the initiatives taken together could make a real impact on the city, which was criticised for standards of cleanliness during the pandemic. He said: “I think it has the potential to b quite transformative.”