LIKE every city councillor in Glasgow, my inbox is full of emails from constituents asking why their rubbish bins aren’t being emptied. I’ve seen their correspondence develop from annoyance to anger as time between collections increase and the calendar of pick-ups they receive every year becomes so useless that it itself goes straight in the recycling.

Glaswegians care about their communities and their area, but they also appreciate being told the facts. No amount of political spin can hide the rat infestations, fly-tipping or overflowing rubbish on the streets escalating across our city.

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We know our residents are trying their best as are our cleansing workers, who are going above and beyond in the most challenging of circumstances to deliver services. But we also know that Trade Unions like the GMB are raising the same concerns that we are, so let’s not allow anyone to dismiss or blame them for this disaster.

This failure lies squarely at the SNP administration’s door. They might preach that the three weekly bin collection is in place to save our planet, but in reality we know that isn’t the case.

This was a political choice, made by the SNP administration, driven by year on year budget cuts to our city from their colleagues in Holyrood rather than a passion for sustainability.

Sustainability cannot be used as a get-out to cover up cuts. Pure and simple. Nor can some SNP politicians line up to have their photo taken at the world-leading Recycling Centre opened in the Southside, an initiative started by the last Labour administration, and then claim that only they care about sustainability.

Next month Glasgow City Council will look to set its budget, and once again local government is expected to be treated with contempt by the Scottish Government. The SNP will announce our fate today, but Glasgow is bracing for £115M of cuts over the next three years. Cuts to services that have already been cut to the bone.

It didn’t have to be this way. In Wales, a Labour Government announced in December that they would be increasing funding for their local authorities, acknowledging the challenges Councils across the country are facing and committing to support them – this is in sharp contrast to Scotland where despite having the powers to do things differently the Scottish Government is still too interested in playing the blame game.

So my message is clear – Glaswegians deserve better than this. It’s time other parties join Labour in fighting for Glasgow to get a fair deal which would allow us to prioritise the statutory services that have been decimated as well as implementing a bold Green New Deal for our city that does not pip services against each other for funding but instead allow us to properly invest in both causes.

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In November Glasgow will host COP26, the most important climate conference the world has ever seen but if this administration don’t get it’s act together on cleansing, maybe we’ll be asking world leaders to join us on a community clean-up so they can see what life is really like for Glaswegians.