Greenwich Council is to spend £5 million on a fly-tipping crackdown as the ruling Labour party prepares for its most challenging election in decades.

The money, which will be spent over the next four and a half years, is part of a package of spending commitments released by the council with only six months until the election on May 7, next year.

The council will treble the number of enforcement teams, install new CCTV, name and shame criminals, and give rewards to locals who assist the council in catching offenders.

While the council faces further steep spending cuts – and residents face higher charges and fees to compensate – this money comes from one-time sources such as cash from developers, government grants, land sales, and other windfalls that are not part of the council’s regular revenue.

The budget was approved by the council’s cabinet earlier this month, along with £2.2 million for the borough’s three main town centres – Greenwich, Woolwich, and Eltham – and £4.3 million to expand the borough’s team of community safety officers.

Another £8 million will be spent on road resurfacing, with £2.4 million set aside for the borough’s culture strategy.

Some large-scale projects are also mentioned, including a £24 million primary school for children with special needs and a £12.3 million facility for young adults with special needs.

However, little information regarding these projects has been made available, including papers on which the cabinet voted.

Instead, statements about these are being made on a weekly basis, with an eye on an election in which Labour may face pressure from both the right and the left in what might be the most difficult election since 1968, when Labour lost the council to the Conservatives for three years.

According to Labour insiders, the failure to clean up fly-tipping near a voting station on the Barnfield Estate in Plumstead contributed to the Greens winning one of the party’s safest seats, Shooters Hill, in a by-election in June.

Averil Lekau, the deputy leader, was later relieved of responsibility for environmental services, and Jackie Smith, the cabinet member for business and the economy, took over.

While the Greens will compete with Labour in the north, the party also faces threats from the Conservatives and Reform in the south.

Council leader Anthony Okereke will be hoping that the fly-tipping announcement, a catchy “getting things done” motto, and some foul language will pique people’ interest.

“Fly-tipping is lazy and criminal, and we’re not putting up with this shit anymore,” he added in a statement.

“We collect approximately 841 tonnes of dumping waste each year, which costs our residents more than £800,000 annually. That is the equivalent of 50 double-decker buses, which is unacceptable given that the vast majority of residents do the right thing by keeping the borough clean.

“We’ve heard loud and clear from residents that you’re sick of fly-tipping in our borough – and so are we.”

Smith said the council would also improve its bulky garbage collection service, which costs £13.31 per item, but did not elaborate on how. Lewisham agreed last week to reduce its levy from £14 to £5.

Flytipping, trash, and waste services were previously obvious targets for cuts: in 2020, under the previous leader, Danny Thorpe, “taskforce teams” dealing with flytipping in the worst-hit regions of the borough were slashed in half to save £180,000.

Only last year, cuts were authorised that will force residents to pay for garden waste collection, as they do in Greenwich’s three neighbouring boroughs, and reduce street sweeping on several roads.

However, those changes have yet to take effect, as council officers are currently determining which streets should receive less sweeping.

At a council meeting last month, Smith encouraged homeowners to file complaints if they felt their street was not being swept correctly. Charlie Davis, a Conservative councillor for Eltham Town and the opposition’s deputy leader, stated:

“Over six months ago, we made tackling anti-social behaviour and fly-tipping the centrepiece of our amendment to the council’s budget, which was rejected by the Labour administration.” We have now lost more than half a year in which these issues may have been prioritised.”

It is good to see Greenwich Labour have belatedly come round to prioritising the issues that matter most of local residents, but let’s not pretend this isn’t anything other than a naked attempt by this tired and directionless Labour administration to try and avert electoral disaster next May.”

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