Complaints about dirt force Collboni to intensify surveillance and sanctions in Ciutat Vella

BarcelonaIt was a request from the residents of the Gothic Quarter, the Old Town and the Raval for years, and finally the Barcelona City Council has taken action. The municipal government has announced that it is launching a pilot test to reduce Dirt on the streets of Barcelona, especially in these neighbourhoods of the Ciutat Vella district. And they will do so based on information and awareness, but also with greater sanctions. This was announced on Tuesday by the third deputy mayor and councillor of Ciutat Vella, Albert Batlle, who insisted that the problem does not focus on the work of the cleaning services –whom he has thanked for their work– but on the incivility of the "neighbours, merchants and visitors".

"There is an exaggerated volume of continuous incivility that we do not want to allow," said Batlle in reference to the places where the pilot plan will be deployed. "In these areas we have detected very important cases of infractions, and it is there where maximum control will be carried out," insisted the councillor of Ciutat Vella. Leaving rubbish outside the bin it belongs in, outside the stipulated hours or accumulating old or broken junk on the street was already a reason for a fine in Barcelona, ​​but Batlle has explained that now with this new plan the council wants to intensify surveillance and also sanctions at least in 21 streets of the city that are considered especially problematic.

First warn and then fine

Initially, the campaign will be purely informative. Cleaning teams will label incorrectly sorted bags with large, highly visible orange stickers, informative posters will be hung and possible sanctions will be announced. But this first stage of warning will be short: "We don't want to prolong it too much in time, people already know the basic rules of coexistence - argued Batlle - and we will remind them. But after a short period, about two weeks, we will start to sanction," he explained. Fines for leaving waste in the street can reach 600 euros. When this second phase of the plan arrives, a specific strategy will be necessary, with more City Police officers on the street and more inspectors to impose sanctions on residents and merchants who leave rubbish out of place or misuse the containers. "Tourists who do it wrong will obviously also be sanctioned," clarified the councillor, who did not specify how many more officers will join the patrols to increase control in these areas. In fact, Batlle has said that it is not ruled out that "in the future" the video surveillance cameras used to investigate criminal acts could also be used to monitor those who do not make proper use of the containers.

The test, which has not yet been proposed for any other area of the city, also involves rethinking how rubbish is collected in these more conflictive areas. The City Council has explained that waste collection will be concentrated in the early morning and afternoon, "so that all the waste abandoned outside the established hours will be more visible." A change that has not been specified for how long it will be maintained or whether it will be extended for a long time or not.

The neighbors, fed up

All of this is part of an "awareness and awareness" campaign included in the Endreça Plan, since, according to Batlle, the cleaning services are working correctly. "The neighbours tell us this and we see it and feel it in the neighbourhood councils. In Ciutat Vella there is constantly cleaning staff working, but there are certain streets that are still dirty. It is an issue that is obvious," complained the deputy mayor. However, neighbourhoods such as Raval and Sant Antoni continue to be dirty. expressing their displeasure with the situation with posters stuck around the dirtiest streets against the City Council and the Endreça Plan.

Complaints from neighbours about the dirt in Barcelona became one of the main concerns of citizens a couple of years ago. "It was a problem that worried residents a lot, especially in the Casc Antic, and this government already understood that it was a situation that had to be addressed," explained Batlle, who said that at the beginning of his mandate, Mayor Jaume Collboni had already spoken directly with the companies that contracted the cleaning and told them that "a turning point" was necessary. However, the municipal government then maintained that the cleaning system worked correctly and attributed the conflict to incivility. "The situation has improved since then, but the problem remains in some areas, which is why we are doing this pilot test," concluded Batlle.