• ONE of the main issues which residents repeatedly raise with us is their concerns about messy local streets.

Sometimes it’s fly-tipping, other times its litter or dog mess. And people tell us that things have got worse since Labour broke their manifesto pledge and cut rubbish collections down to once a fortnight.

At the weekend we reported to Camden Council that there was piles of rubbish or fly-tipping dumped off Chester Road, Croftdown Road, Dartmouth Park Hill, and St Alban’s Road.

In various places there were bags of trash, an old door, builders’ waste, a fridge-freezer, an abandoned floor lamp, a dirty mattress, a laundry rack, and piles of wood.

Some litter bins, such as the one by the bus stop outside the Highgate Library, were over-flowing with rubbish pouring out onto the pavements.

We’ve also seen too many neatly-tied little bags of dog mess just dropped by the side of the road or next to a tree. And more generally, unbagged dog mess is a constant obstacle for pedestrians and runners.

There’s never an excuse for littering or fly-tipping, particularly of bags of dog mess, so the council needs to do more to clamp down on offenders.

That’s why we are calling on Camden to increase fines for fly-tipping to £400, in line with other London boroughs, and to do more to investigate and track down the perpetrators who risk blighting our community.

Camden Council also need to make sure that there are more litter bins, particularly in busy areas or those popular with dog-walkers. These bins must be regularly emptied.

And the council should do what Camden Conservatives have long fought for: restore weekly bin collections. We are lucky to live in one of the most beautiful parts of London. Camden Council needs to get a grip of this so we can all enjoy nice, clean streets.

HENRY NEWMAN
JIM ORMISTON
BEN SEIFERT
Highgate Conservatives