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| Cllr Alex Jacob and Mark Clarke inspect Tooting High Street |
Wandsworth is one of the tidiest boroughs in London. It was recently rating the 6th cleanest in London by Encams (formerly the Tidy Britain Group). Wandsworth Council cleans Tooting Town Centre a staggering 12 times per day – the highest in the borough. Even the side streets benefit from this intensive cleaning schedule. However, we all recognise that the area around Tooting needs to be cleaner.
The reasons why Tooting faces cleaning challenges are complex. They include the fact that:
- Lots of street traders generate litter in the everyday course of their work.
- Tooting is a very busy place - Tooting Broadway station has more people go through the barriers than Clapham Junction.
- Tooting attracts people during the daytime who don't live in the area. We all know that you respect a place more when you live there than when you are just pass through.
- Much of Tooting is a Red Route which means that the Government have decided that Transport for London, not the Council, controls it. This makes co-ordination difficult.
- The Government have taken eighty police away from Wandsworth in the last ten years. This makes it difficult for local police to stay on top of low level anti-social behaviour like littering. In fact the Government have told the police not to target such low level crime.
Already there is nowhere in Wandsworth which the Council clean more often than Tooting. But Mark thinks we can do more. That's why Mark has been meeting with Wandsworth Council and with your local Tooting councillors to achieve just that. The action that Mark has taken includes:
- Within two weeks of becoming the Conservative's candidate for Tooting, Mark went on a walkabout Tooting High Street with every Council Cabinet member and with the Leader of Wandsworth Council. This gave Mark an opportunity to discuss with senior Council members first hand areas where Tooting needed to be improved.
- Mark regularly goes on walkabouts with your local councillors to find problem spots and then reports them to the Council. See here (link to photo) a photo of some flytipping which was spotted by Mark and Tooting Councillor Alex Jacob. They reported it to the Council and it was promptly removed.
- In November, Mark raised concerns about the quality of the cleaning in Tooting. The Council took immediate action with the contractor. As a result the proportion of streets swept to 'Grade A' went up to 75% last December and a superb 88% in January.
- Mark continually complained to the previous Labour Mayor of London about the clutter on Tooting High Street. Unfortunately, the High Street fellinto his jurisdiction. Many of the shops put their signs out onto the streets and this makes the area both dangerous and cluttered. Alas, when Mark contacted the previous Labour Mayor's team who looked after this matter, their response (this is not a joke) was to ask where Wandsworth was. Richard Tracey, our local Conservative London Assembly Member, is rightly pressing for responsibility for Tooting High Street and Upper Tooting Road to be transferred from Transport for London to direct management by Wandsworth Council.
- Mark continues to campaign for more police to enforce low level littering which blights all our lives. If Wandsworth had the police numbers we deserve we would be able to fine those who litter and who drop their chewing gum on the floor. Instead, as a society, we turn a blind eye to these low level acts of anti-social behaviour. Mark is calling on the Government to give Wandsworth back its eighty police so we can fight low level crime effectively.
What can you do?
- Always report flytipping to the Council promptly so that they can fix it.
- If you see any litter problems developing in your street contact either one of your local Councillors, Alex Jacob or myself to get it fixed. (link on names to email addresses)