Glass, dog mess and litter on Brighton's streets, says MP

5:00pm Saturday 18th August 2012 in News By Bill Gardner

Broken glass, dog mess and rubbish is strewn across our city's streets, an MP has complained.

Kemptown MP Simon Kirby has written to the chief executive of Brighton and Hove City Council after residents said roads in the area were littered with trash, especially Max Miller Walk.

Mr Kirby said the problem was making Kemp Town seem “unattractive” and warned visitors could be put off.

He said: “I appreciate that in an ideal world responsible dog owners would clear up after their dogs and people would not smash bottles on the pavement.

“However the reality is this does occur and the council should ensure that streets remain clean and safe for visitors and residents alike.”

A spokeswoman for Brighton and Hove City Council said: “We welcome comments and suggestions from our residents and local MPs on how to improve the city.

"As with all other issues raised with us, we will give this issue our full attention.”

Comments(36)

ICantThinkOfAName says...
5:36pm Sat 18 Aug 12

If he's walking past it, why doesn't he show an example to his constituents and pick it up?

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john5001 says...
6:15pm Sat 18 Aug 12

thats brighton for you,

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pebble counter says...
6:15pm Sat 18 Aug 12

ICantThinkOfAName wrote:
If he's walking past it, why doesn't he show an example to his constituents and pick it up?
Probably got more important things to do I should think. Why don't you get out and clear it up?

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Enema of the peephole says...
6:24pm Sat 18 Aug 12

I thought glass, dog mess and litter were just a few of the items on a long list of stuff for which MPs claim millions of pounds expenses.

The tax payer has also just been forced to put an additional £50 million in to top up the MPs gold-plated pension fund. Just as they're shafting everyone else. Seems no less disgusting than the dog poo.

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chrisinbrighton says...
6:32pm Sat 18 Aug 12

Clean up your own act first. Bible says remove the log from your own eye first,before you remove the splinter from your brothers.

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leobrighton says...
7:05pm Sat 18 Aug 12

There are plenty of street cleaners in the area and it all gets cleaned up quickly but they can't be everywhere at once. Dog mess is uncommon and hardly a problem. Sounds like a veiled attack on council workers as we all know tory MPs sole purpose in life is to attack working people. Vile.

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wole says...
7:51pm Sat 18 Aug 12

It is probably occurring when the grass gets cut and the cuttings, glass, dog excrement etc gets thrown across the whole street making it impossible to walk in your front door without half an acre of grass on your shoes.
This needs to be sorted out as it really is disgusting.

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ICantThinkOfAName says...
9:10pm Sat 18 Aug 12

pebble counter wrote:
ICantThinkOfAName wrote:
If he's walking past it, why doesn't he show an example to his constituents and pick it up?
Probably got more important things to do I should think. Why don't you get out and clear it up?
I do in my community, do you?

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Maxwell's Ghost says...
9:19pm Sat 18 Aug 12

Mr Kirby is spot on. I cycled down Coombe Road this afternoon and the road is an unbelievable eyesore. I suggest the letting agents including Parks, mtm, and the other agents and the councillors representing this ward go and look at the disgraceful mess the tenants, mostly students, are leaving.
Sussex and Brighton Uni should be ashamed of their students.

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bug eye says...
9:53pm Sat 18 Aug 12

I think it is clear for everyone to see and a lot of people I know are talking about how scruffy this city has become.

The fabric of the city is to blame with awful paving and road surfaces, scruffy buildings and too much clutter. Just noticing the other day where they are working at the bottom of Preston st. workmen were replacing some paving slabs in the central reservation. why did they not just replace the whole row and make them look the same and clean, now we have some new ones mished mashed in with old dirty ones and this says to visitors and residents the council do not care. If you have dirty marks on your walls at home after a few years you do not paint over the dirty marks you paint the whole wall, simple. The council simply do ow a scruffy city people will not respect it.

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MuammarQaddafi says...
10:40pm Sat 18 Aug 12

Community service! How about sentencing young convicted yobs to a few hundred hours of supervised cleanup duty?

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UglyAmerican says...
10:51pm Sat 18 Aug 12

john5001 wrote:
thats brighton for you,
I've been traveling to Brighton at least twice a year for more than a decade, and to be fair, it's better now than it was in the beginning. There won't be any "Cleanest City In England" ceremonies, but it is not nearly as nasty as my first impressions 12 years ago....

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Minion says...
10:55pm Sat 18 Aug 12

the city has gotten filthy. I moved away in march and every time I come down to visit it looks worse and worse. you probably son't notice the change so much if you see it everyday. There's litter all over the pavements, in the roads, the buildings aren't being maintained, in some cases even a coat of paint would work wonders, the fountain at the bottom of st james st looks like crap now, everything is so dirty and unpleasant, add that to the street drinkers, homeless, and west street's shameless binge drinkers and the whole place seems like one big slum. it's not about who to blame for the mess, it's about what is (or isn't) being done to sort the problem out.

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NickBrt says...
11:47pm Sat 18 Aug 12

Although I despise Mr Kirby's political party I am pleased he has raised this issue. Unlike the other Brighton MP who does all she can to invite the sort of people into Brighton who cause this mess.

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Old Ale Man says...
8:18am Sun 19 Aug 12

ICantThinkOfAName wrote:
If he's walking past it, why doesn't he show an example to his constituents and pick it up?
Theres to much for the guy to pick up and never enough bins to carry it to. , I pick up in my street every day particularly after the bin and recycling teams have "bin" round, I then put it in the nearest wheely, Do you pick up whats lying around in the street noname??

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RickH says...
8:25am Sun 19 Aug 12

Old Ale Man wrote:
ICantThinkOfAName wrote: If he's walking past it, why doesn't he show an example to his constituents and pick it up?
Theres to much for the guy to pick up and never enough bins to carry it to. , I pick up in my street every day particularly after the bin and recycling teams have "bin" round, I then put it in the nearest wheely, Do you pick up whats lying around in the street noname??
Same here. My street isn't a throughfare, so the only traffic is residents and their visitors. As a result, the street is fairly clean and tidy all the time; except on bin and recycling collection days. Then, the street can look as though the seagulls have had a party!

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RickH says...
8:26am Sun 19 Aug 12

**thoroughfare** DOH!

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minnie&teddy says...
9:10am Sun 19 Aug 12

most of the disgusting streets seem to me its been worse since the huge rubbish bins were introduced,they overflow with rubbish,so, people of today still leave the rubbish on the surrounding area inviting the seagulls to a picnic! bring back the every household DUSTBIN not as much trash around in those days and we were taught not to drop anything on the ground sadly now not much ofthat teaching goes on!

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Martha Gunn says...
9:39am Sun 19 Aug 12

Precisely M&T. The communal bins have turned into fly tipping sites. Builders use them as skips, business premises use them instead of having a commercial contract and they just overflow.

But one other interesting observation: In our street the houses and flats that just dump their rubbish in the road correlate exactly with those which displayed "Vote Green" posters at the last election. Has anyone else noticed this curious association?

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pebble counter says...
9:45am Sun 19 Aug 12

Well at least it can be cleaned, it will just take a bit of effort. Brighton has always been seedy, but charming with it. If you want to feel better about Brighton and Hove, spend a day in Burgess Hill. It's clean, but devoid of any charm whatsoever.

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Getaroundin says...
9:52am Sun 19 Aug 12

Martha Gunn wrote:
Precisely M&T. The communal bins have turned into fly tipping sites. Builders use them as skips, business premises use them instead of having a commercial contract and they just overflow.

But one other interesting observation: In our street the houses and flats that just dump their rubbish in the road correlate exactly with those which displayed "Vote Green" posters at the last election. Has anyone else noticed this curious association?
Interesting observation

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ourcoalition says...
10:04am Sun 19 Aug 12

If his Government cut less money from the Council (and that includes the "blue" run administration that was here till May 2011)perhaps there would be more staff to clean up litter/rubbish. And there is nothing to stop Mr Kirby organising a group in his area to put his "Big Society" into action and clear it up themselves.
As far as I see it, City Clean do a pretty fantastic job on a daily basis, in what is a busy seaside City.

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davyboy says...
10:06am Sun 19 Aug 12

MuammarQaddafi wrote:
Community service! How about sentencing young convicted yobs to a few hundred hours of supervised cleanup duty?
yes why not, good idea. after all, they are probably the ones who throw the stuff in the first place

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Lady Smith says...
11:10am Sun 19 Aug 12

Maxwell's Ghost wrote:
Mr Kirby is spot on. I cycled down Coombe Road this afternoon and the road is an unbelievable eyesore. I suggest the letting agents including Parks, mtm, and the other agents and the councillors representing this ward go and look at the disgraceful mess the tenants, mostly students, are leaving.
Sussex and Brighton Uni should be ashamed of their students.
Spot on! I live in this area too, and it's become horrendous in the last 18 months. And I'm afraid it IS the students...

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Dr.Draconian says...
11:31am Sun 19 Aug 12

Brighton is a LOT cleaner than it was 20 years ago, just look at Trafalgar Street for instance.

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Maxwell's Ghost says...
11:52am Sun 19 Aug 12

Lady Smith until the labour councillors who represent that ward get off their backsides and tackle the issue the students, the landlords and the letting agencies get away with it.
Warren Morgan and Gill Mitchell should get their colleagues to do something useful instead of taking votes and the money and doing nothing.
I can tell you that Bangkok and Sao Paolo are cleaner than the Coombe Road area and the Cityclean guys work damned hard at keepin it that way but come Tuesday the landlords and students are piling furniture and plastic bags on the pavements.
Please prosecute them as these properties don't even pay council tax and the landlords and students aren't local so don't give a toss.
Come on Labour shift your lethargic arses and work in your communities.

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Enema of the peephole says...
12:30pm Sun 19 Aug 12

"Broken glass, dog mess and litter".

Don't Tories believe these are all suitable foodstuffs for poor folk?

I guess if it was all human poo then at least one bin man might have scooped it up for microwaving at a later date?

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puddingandpi says...
12:57pm Sun 19 Aug 12

"It is *people* who drop litter, not the council"

Breaking News, Half man Half Biscuit

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Wiggsy says...
8:28pm Sun 19 Aug 12

leobrighton wrote:
There are plenty of street cleaners in the area and it all gets cleaned up quickly but they can't be everywhere at once. Dog mess is uncommon and hardly a problem. Sounds like a veiled attack on council workers as we all know tory MPs sole purpose in life is to attack working people. Vile.
"Dog mess in uncommon and hardly a problem".......reall
y?

It might not be an issue in the city centre, but in residential areas its rife-walking to the station each morning is like taking part in "Total Wipeout" in the attempts to avoid it!

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Grumpyguy says...
11:24pm Sun 19 Aug 12

Our MPs and councillors should visit the area round the railway station. Disgusting. Not exactly the image that a city wants to leave in the minds of visitors. The truth is that significant areas of inner Brighton have become filthy eyesores. On top of the litter, we have the pleasing visual addition of rampant weeds (I assume the Council has stopped spraying the wretched things).

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tonybee says...
1:52am Mon 20 Aug 12

I live off Coombe Road & it's not just the filth the students generate - they are totally antisocial - coming home (waking me up) at 4.30 am . vomiting in wheelie bins & peeing against cars.
I thought they were supposed to integrate with the local community - not
DESTROY it

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egym64 says...
12:33pm Mon 20 Aug 12

Maxwell's Ghost wrote:
Mr Kirby is spot on. I cycled down Coombe Road this afternoon and the road is an unbelievable eyesore. I suggest the letting agents including Parks, mtm, and the other agents and the councillors representing this ward go and look at the disgraceful mess the tenants, mostly students, are leaving.
Sussex and Brighton Uni should be ashamed of their students.
Spot on...Perhaps if the Council made Landlords responsible for their Students mess, ie: A heavy fine,
they would make bloody sure that Students clear up after themselves. I used to live in Bear road and had to order a Wheelie bin and re-cycle box's for them and show them what goes where!. They were still to stupid to use them so I used to toss their rubbish in their front garden! Now im on Lewes road and Edinburgh street is just as disgusting!

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NickBrt says...
1:10pm Mon 20 Aug 12

Strange that the 'Green' MP has yet to say anything about this. Presumably she doesn't care about this issue.

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Flippin Burghers says...
2:00pm Mon 20 Aug 12

chrisinbrighton wrote:
Clean up your own act first. Bible says remove the log from your own eye first,before you remove the splinter from your brothers.
That's right. Clear up your own dog's mess before sticking your nose in other people's Mr Kirby.

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Alison Smith says...
4:19pm Mon 20 Aug 12

I totally agree with Simon Kirby MP. I went into the town centre the other day and it was looking very shabby. Yes the beach was full, but the shopping areas were dirty. The usually attractive East Street was particularly bad, which doesn't make eating in the outside seating of the restaurants very appealing. The Green experiment has failed, let's get back to the "grown-ups" running the town, not the "children".

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General Dreedle says...
1:25am Tue 21 Aug 12

NickBrt wrote:
Strange that the 'Green' MP has yet to say anything about this. Presumably she doesn't care about this issue.
Don't be silly. Cazzer is not going to alienate her core vote. Strange isn't it that the Green Party once so in favour of cleaning up the planet is now just concerned with maintaining power by allowing their followers to do what they like at the expense of everyone else. Park where you like, make a mess for tax payers to clean up, don't pay taxes, come to town and protest about whatever you like (as long as we agree with you), vandalise business premises, squat in people's homes, just vote for us at the next election. We in return will turn a blind eye and target hard working tax payers instead by (trying) to raise council tax, raising parking costs not representing those who protest at your actions and crushing non-believing infadels with our Marxist jackboots.

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