A cleaning schedule has been set for a new day, as the first of the year’s two New Year’s Eve celebrations is postponed.
Key points:The council has said it will continue to use the old cleaning schedule until the end of next yearThe new cleaning schedule will be announced at a press conference on FridayThe council said it would continue to clean the city during New Year celebrations until the last minute, and would not use any more of the old scheduleThis means the council will be working with local authorities to ensure everyone’s safety and cleanliness during New Years Eve, the council said.
Council leader Tom Long told ABC Radio Melbourne that the council was working with police to ensure safety for New Year.
“We’ve got a number of partners that we’ve asked to get involved to get our events going, so that’s all going to take place on a different day, we’ll be announcing the date at a media conference,” he said.
“It’s not like we’re just saying, ‘We’re not going to do it on New Year Day’.
We’ve been working very hard to get it working.”
Mr Long said the council would still clean the streets, but the clean-up would be more extensive.
“Obviously the cleaning of the streets has been going on for the last two weeks, but as soon as that ends, we’re going to have a new cleaning order put in place, and then the council is going to be using the old one, and we’re working with the local authorities on that, so we’re not taking any chances,” he told ABC radio.
“There are a number things that need to be done to make sure we’re safe and our streets are clean, and that’s what we’ll do.”
Mr Shorten said he had been in touch with local councils to ensure their safety.
“I think it’s important to recognise that we have got to be a very strong and clear community and it is not acceptable to put people at risk,” he tweeted.
“This is about our health and safety and it’s about our city’s future.”
The council announced a week-long cleaning schedule for the streets on Thursday.
It will now go into effect at 9:00am on New Years Day.
“The old cleaning order has been put in, which is a very serious breach of our own rules, and it means people are not going home, they’re not getting to know their neighbours and they’re missing out on a lot of things,” Mr Shorten told the ABC.
“So we’re saying to them, ‘look, we’ve got to make it clear to people that we’re here, we understand what we’re doing, we know the rules, we respect the law, we do the right thing, and if you want to do things in our streets, we won’t do it.'”
Mr Shortens’ comments came after a new report found a quarter of Sydney’s streets were not clean enough.
“As we said at the beginning, the new cleaning plan will require the city to be cleaned from a cleaning standpoint of every day, with some days being significantly less,” the report found.
“Of those streets that are not clean, about half of those are not adequately maintained.”
The report found the city’s water supply was not clean and that a significant number of streets were under maintenance.
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