Dispute is symbol of a decade of underinvestment in daily life

As dumped rubbish continues to blight Birmingham's streets, West Midlands mayor Richard Parker writes for

- 

THERE'S no denying the situation we're in. Like many people across our city, I've been annoyed and dismayed by the state of our streets.

The bins strike though, is just a symbol of something much deeper - the consequences of more than a decade of underinvestment in the fabric of daily life.

The truth is that public services in Birmingham have been under immense pressure for years. The council, like most others in the country, has been asked to do more and more with less and less.

And in Birmingham, the scale of those cuts has been stark. Since 2010, we've lost over £1 billion in funding from government. That's left us without the resilience to absorb shocks, invest in long-term solutions or keep pace with a growing and changing population.

We're now seeing the result of those decisions and it's our most vulnerable communities who are paying the price.

And yet, amid the headlines and finger-pointing, what has struck me most is not the anger, but the quiet determination of people doing something about it: volunteers clearing streets; local leaders who have stepped up; neighbours organising waste collections and community clean-ups.