SWEEPERS that should be keeping Worcester City centre’s streets clean have not been used for a year.

Four small street sweepers have been sitting idle after they broke down and the firm which supplied them to Worcester City Council went into liquidation.

Since then, the cash-strapped council has stopped paying contractual fees for the sweepers because officers said they were “not fit for purpose” and they had not been getting the service agreed.

Larger road sweepers have not been affected.

Negotiations are now taking place with the bank to try and resolve the problem as the city council, which needs to make £4.5 million savings over the next five years, starts to think about setting next year’s budget.

Mike Harrison, head of cleaner and greener at the city council, said his team could not fix the sweepers, which cost £75,420 a year as part of the contractual agreement, because of their high-tech design.

He said: “They have been making them more powerful to suck more stuff up – they even suck up pizza boxes – but because they have lots more suction that makes them very complicated.

“We can’t mend them ourselves because they are so specialised.”

Mr Harrison said he has since brought in temporary, lower-quality sweepers to carry out the work but added he has set aside the money which should have been paid as part of the three-year contract agreement just in case.

“The machines have been parked up for about 12 months but I stopped the payment and I have been hiring other machines in on a temporary basis,” he said. “The bank say carry on paying us but where is the maintenance? The machine’s are no good without maintenance.”

Mr Harrison said the contract had nearly finished and he was in the middle of putting it out to tender.

As part of that process, Mr Harrison said a review was being carried out on how to deliver street cleaning in Worcester after the level of detritus – such as dirt, but not litter – on the city centre’s streets was deemed to be unacceptable, according to internal council targets.

Mr Harrison said the soaring costs of high-quality sweepers meant he was having a hard job trying to strike the balance between machine and manpower.