It will be an early morning start for Derry’s Mayor tomorrow when he joins up with Derry City Council’s Cleansing and Refuse staff for a busy day helping keep the city’s streets clean.
Mayor Martin Reilly.
Mayor Cllr Martin Reilly will adorn a bright yellow suit and heavy duty safety boots at 6.00am to join Derry City Council’s street cleansing team to see at first hand the trials and tribulations of providing frontline services.
The Mayor will meet with the men and women who work within the refuse and cleansing department and see the daily challenges they face to ensure the city is clean and litter free and to discuss their ongoing efforts to improve services.
Mayor Councillor Martin Reilly said he was “really looking forward” to meeting the team and being out and about to get a “real insight” into the daily routine and the important work they do.
He added: “As Mayor, I feel it is important to get a real sense of the work that happens within the Refuse department; to see exactly what issues they face daily, and to provide a voice to those dedicated staff who sometimes do not receive the acknowledgement they deserveIn recent years, there have been major investments that have seen the department improve dramatically, and with the city looking better than ever, it is a credit to the 105 employees currently working within the refuse sector.
“Derry City Council places community needs at the very core of its services, delivering a quality service and ensuring the city is clean, which is of the most importance. I am looking forward to this opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of the work involved.
“The refuse collection team at Derry City Council are on the streets at six each morning and a lot of the work carried out can sometimes go unobserved in the mornings as they rid the streets of the debris of the night before, and provide us with an exemplary service by emptying our rubbish with a weekly service.
“It is not only the bins each day that the refuse team is responsible for, but the cleansing of parks, public spaces as well as lifting cigarette butts, gum removal, dog fouling and graffiti removal.”
He concluded: “Since the introduction of litter wardens who work around the city centre we have also seen an improvement in the overall cleanliness of the city centre.”
