Reeves urges Unite to end Birmingham bin strikes during West Midlands visit
Chancellor says dispute is “not fair on people” as residents in Newtown battle persistent fly-tipping
The Chancellor Rachel Reeves has called on Unite to “put local people first” and call off Birmingham’s bin strikes, saying the ongoing disruption is unfair on residents.
Speaking during a visit to the West Midlands in Wolverhampton, Reeves said she understood the frustration people in Birmingham are feeling as the dispute drags on.
“I would say to the trade union, Unite, put local people first and call these strikes off,” she said. “They’re not happening in other parts of the country. It’s not fair on people in Birmingham – bring them to an end.”
When asked how similar service failures could be prevented in future, Reeves pointed to changes in how councils are funded. She said that after “14 years of Conservative government”, local authority funding had been cut and money “diverted from the poorest areas to better off parts of the country”.
She said a new “fair funding formula” is now directing money “to where it’s needed”, but warned the effects of past cuts could not be reversed quickly.
“We’re not able to turn around those 14 years in just 18 months, but already councils are seeing uplifts in their funding,” she said. “Those days of austerity are now past, we can start to rebuild public services both at a local level and a national level as well.”
Her comments come as some neighbourhoods report worsening problems with rubbish and fly-tipping.
Residents in parts of Birmingham say the impact on the ground is clear. In Newtown, locals describe certain roads as repeat dumping grounds. Walking through Melbourne Avenue, resident Sonya Anderson pointed out what she called one of the city’s worst fly-tipping hotspots.
“A lot of people know where localised hotspots are, and they turn up in the middle of the night and they dump rubbish,” she said. “This is one of the Melbourne Avenue hotspots, one of the major hotspots that they use as a dumping rat run.”
Although rubbish had been cleared earlier, debris remained scattered across the street, including wipes, nappies, vapes and dumped mattresses. Residents say much of the waste is being brought in from outside the area.
“One is in the driving seat and the other one is taking this stuff quickly to get it on the floor,” one local said. “They leave furniture, they leave fridge.”
Another resident said there was footage of people dumping waste, while one added that CCTV had captured a taxi driver fly-tipping.
While clean-ups do take place, residents say unless dumping from outside the neighbourhood is tackled, the mess will continue to return.
Birmingham City Council leader John Cotton said additional funding announced in the authority’s latest budget would strengthen efforts to deal with the problem.
"We’ve taken people to court, we’ve seized vehicles in the past,” he said. “The additional investment means that we will have more resource to be able to do more of that work, tackling the hot spots in the city.”