A clean sweep

As anyone who reads this blog regularly will know, housing and the environment are my two main political priorities. The two come together when we talk about the quality of our urban environment in Putney and the far poorer state the Conservatives allow our council estates to be kept in compared to the more affluent areas.

In Labour's 2006 manifesto for Wandsworth - which I wrote - we devoted an entire section to talking about how the environment defines us - how, in other words, those who live in well-kept, tidy, litter-free, un-vandalised and free-from-graffiti areas tend to have more opportunities, live healthier lives and in turn grow up with more of a respect for their everyday surroundings. Those who live in blighted areas, where buildings are scruffy and neglected, people get away with drinking in the streets or urinating in stairwells; where grafitti and flytipping are common place face a much more challenging upbringing and are taught that no-one else cares about their environment - so why should they?

Recently, researchers from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have been looking at this problem. Sadly, the report they've come up with is incredibly tortuous to read, littered with as much jargon as some of the Putney, Southfields and Roehampton streets the Tories allow to be littered and flytipped.

But it contains this stark fact: roads in more deprived areas are dirtier - and they're dirtier not through some miraculous fact of life but because local authorities spend far less on keeping them clean than they do middle class areas.

There are of course reasons for this. Deprived areas tend to have far higher densities - more people crammed into them, and more people means more chance of environmental problems. Conversely, residents of affluent neighbourhoods are far more likely to get on the phone and complain until the problem's tidied up - and simply through default councils end up spending more on these areas than others.

But there's an underlying political reason too: and simply put it comes down to how much commitment and interest MPs and councillors take in their own patch. That problem is magnified when you have a Conservative MP, a Conservative council and Conservative councillors responsible for areas that, by and large, don't vote for them and where they have a party-political interest in making people believe that the state of their environment cannot be improved by them getting involved and voting.

Well, that may be the Conservative motivation for the state they keep parts of our area in - but it's not mine. Our estates should be as well kept as the leafiest, most expensive street in Putney - and if that means the council has to spend more keeping it clean and tidy, so be it.