The good news for Dundee is that it is cleaner than it was last year. But bad news is that the city - despite its improvement - is now the filthiest local authority in Scotland. A gold-standard survey of nearly 13,000 spots across the country has found that, overall, that Dundee ranked lowest on the main benchmark figure for litter.
Only 86.4 per cent of sites inspected by Keep Scotland Beautiful in the city were deemed acceptable in 2023-24. This figure, which is the proportion of spots inspected that were mostly free of litter, is up from 86.
2% a year earlier. But as other councils recovered faster from the litter peaks of the pandemic, Dundee found itself at the top of Scotland’s very unofficial league table for the messiest public spaces. READ MORE: What Sweden can teach Scotland about recycling and cleaning up our litter Its ranking, however, underlines that that there is more rubbish in the streets, roads, squares and parks of poorer places that richer ones.
As The Herald has already revealed, the KSB survey, carried out for most local councils, found a huge correlation of between poverty and densely populated urban areas and litter. And Dundee - along with Inverclyde, Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire - has some of the country’s poorest communities. Dundee councillors last week heard the city fell well short of its target to get a 94% score in the Keep Scotland Beautiful survey - but that more money will be poured in to picking up litter.
A report before the City Govern.