Tower Hamlets Council hits back after campaign against cuts to street cleaning is launched

Tower Hamlets Council has claimed the borough is the “cleanest” it has ever been after a campaign against cuts to street cleaning was launched.

It comes after Tower Hamlets Labour councillors set about cleaning the streets, donning yellow jackets, while collecting signatures last week against the cutbacks introduced under independent Mayor Lutfur Rahman.

They were protesting over the introduction of a �15 charge to previously free waste collections, along with charges of up to �108 per pest control visit.

A council spokeswoman said: “As part of our commitment to keeping the borough clean, we commission a third sector organisation to independently monitor how we are doing.

“Their findings show that we are actually the cleanest we have ever been, with 97.7 per cent of our streets litter free and 97.9 per cent of our streets free from fly posting.

“This success is partly down to the investment we have made in introducing two new Find it Fix it teams and a special machine designed to clear away dog mess and disinfect the pavement. We’ve also increased our litter bin provision by 2,000 units to ensure that these high standards are maintained.”