Miles Briggs, the Scottish Tory housing spokesman, said it was unfair for Bute House to be left “fortified” while the capital’s streets looked like a “dump”.
“Taxpayers who are saddled with millions of pounds in picking up her bins are also paying for a proper council service they are being denied thanks to her. [Ms Sturgeon’s] government cuts and upheavals,” he said.
Mr Briggs also criticized the timing of Ms Sturgeon’s three-day visit to Denmark to open a Nordic office for the Scottish Government, which will cost taxpayers around £600,000 a year.
He added: “It’s little wonder that Nicola Sturgeon seems unfazed by the rubbish piling up around Edinburgh while she’s in Copenhagen. He urgently needs to clean up this mess.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said it was “appropriate” that Mitty was picking up rubbish from Bute House because it “also serves as an office for officials and the Cabinet”.
But 87-year-old Helen Sikora, who lives a 20-minute walk from Bute House, said she had to store rubbish in her bathtub.
Speaking from her home in the Old Town, she told the BBC: ‘I came up with the idea on my own as it’s the safest place to put rubbish. If it leaks, then it’s easy to clean my bathroom. It’s absolutely disgusting to go out shopping just now and see rubbish all over the pavements.’
Neil Dishington, a 38-year-old builder who lives in the Polwarth area, said he was hired on £200 a week, adding: “I’d have over 20 bags of rubbish in my house now if I hadn’t done this.”
Many Edinburgh residents have privately paid for waste collection companies to remove their rubbish. Clearabee, the UK’s largest private waste removal company, said demand for services in Scotland has increased by 40%.
