Highcliffe Drive cleaning improvements

The Council has finally got round to dealing with the petition I submitted last year on behalf of residents of Highcliffe Drive on the Alton estate about the poor quality of the cleaning there.

The report on my petition can be read here.

This report is a bit of a curate's egg - good in parts. I'm impressed by the following-up the council has done with those who signed my petition; and I'm pleased that generally residents have seen an improvement.

The reason, or excuse, the Council gives for the poor state of Highcliffe Drive is not, however, good enough. Yes, I accept that the major improvement works to the estate would have hampered cleaning during the period the scaffold was up. However, my team and I are in Highcliffe Drive all year round, and the state of the blocks was poor long before the work started.

That work would also not have prevented the cleaners from, for example, sweeping the corridors free of rubbish. It would not have prevented them wiping down the communal windows, that were so thick with dust it was evident they hadn't been cleaned for months, if not years. It certainly would not have prevented them clearing up urine in the stairwells. And it would not have prevented them keeping the areas around the refuse chutes clean and clear.

I'm also disappointed that the Council does not believe that the stairwells need better ventilation. It would be very easy and affordable to get more air into the stairs; in fact I'd like to see the stairwells opened up as widely as possible, because one of the reasons we get anti-social behaviour in these areas is because they're enclosed and dark.

Finally, the improvement works to Highcliffe Drive have made a big difference: the blocks look smarter and brighter. But that is only an argument for making sure that the council gets its cleaning here spot-on - so that the money spent on smartening the place up goes as far as possible.

I'll keep monitoring this because in this the fiftieth anniversary year of the Alton estate, there's never been a better time to significantly improve the heart of Roehampton.