By Alan Healy
Deputy Editor

THE CITY’S street sweepers have been praised after a significant increase in the levels of cleanliness here.
The figures emerged at Thursday afternoon’s meeting of Derry City Council’s Environment Services Committee, where the City Engineer John Kelpie presented his annual departmental report.
Speaking at the meeting, Mr. Kelpie said the 2008/09 period had been an ‘incredibly busy year’ the City Engineer’s Department, but added that they had made ‘very substantive progress’ having achieved almost all of their targets.
He added that one of those had been levels of overall cleanliness in the city, which he attributed to the hard work of staff on the ground.
“Independent monitors from Tidy NI would carry out inspections in the city four times a year,” he said.
“A couple of years ago, less than 70 per cent of our streets would have been subjected to what we would call high levels of cleanliness.
“There is now upwards of 90 per cent of our streets subjected high levels of cleanliness.”
Mr. Kelpie added that the introduction of new equipment had also helped boost the figures.
He added that the department had also made significant progress in dealing with litter problems at both the Budget DIY and Smyth’s car park.
“We’ve issued litter control and litter abatement orders to two private car parks on the Strand Road and it gives me great pleasure driving to work in the morning and see that they are as clean as the rest of the area.
He added that they had also effected a major reduction in the tonnage of municipal waste sent to landfill and maintained the recycling rate at 32/33 per cent.
Commenting, Sinn Fein councillor Gerry MacLochlainn paid tribute to the effort of the City Engineers.
“Usually when the media are reporting on council matters it is either a political controversy or bad news, but this is an example of Derry City Council working at its best,” he said.
The DUP’s Joe Miller added: “The City Engineers are at the coal face of council and this is where people see what they’re getting for their rates.
“The department is well led, and I’d like to congratulate the City Engineer and all those who work with him.”