A Melbourne council spent $4 million cleaning up syringes. It wants the government to pay it back

A Melbourne council is chasing the Victorian government for millions of ratepayer dollars it spent to clean up syringes around the city's only safe injection site.

The City of Yarra says it has spent around $4 million cleaning streets of discarded needles near the North Richmond Medically Supervised Injection Room (MSIR) since it opened in 2018.

The council says it has repeatedly asked the Victorian government, which delivered the MSIR, to reimburse the ongoing $500,000-per-year cleaning fee.

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"Obviously, when you've got the only supervised injecting facility in Melbourne in Richmond, there's gonna be heaps of needles," City of Yarra mayor Stephen Jolly told 9News earlier this month.

"It'd be like the council paying for the cleaning of all the public hospitals and private hospitals in the City of Yarra. It's crazy.

"We're happy to clean it up, because we want to keep the streets clean of needles for obvious reasons, but again, why are ratepayers paying for state facilities?"

The council wants to see the Allan government take a similar approach to the NSW government, which funds syringe management in the Kings Cross neighbourhood where the Uniting Medically Supervised Injecting Centre operates. 

The Victorian government said the removal of litter from public places is the responsibility of the council, but noted they were "also exploring further measures to reduce unsafe disposal".

"We have made significant investments to improve safety and amenity around the facility, including more cameras, better police coordination and expanded outreach services - which check for syringe litter while on foot patrol," a Victorian government spokesperson said.

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Karen Hovenga, who has lived in Richmond for more than 35 years, didn't take issue with council rates being allocated to the street clean-up.

"I think it's part of a bigger conversation around what the state government should be paying for and what the local council should be paying for," Hovenga said.

"I see the MSIR as a really positive service and I think that in any council area, if there were syringes on the ground, the local council would be providing some sort of service to clean them up."

The ratepayer said the number of needles on the streets had, in fact, decreased since the MSIR was established.

"We have had a drug issue in this area for a very long time," Hovenga said.

"I no longer clean up syringes from my front garden, so I certainly think that there are fewer syringes around my local area.

"It was always a hazard we needed to be aware of ...[now] it's just not a stress."

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The North Richmond MSIR has managed more than 11,000 overdoses and saved at least 63 lives since it was established.

The City of Yarra recently backflipped on its support of the facility, arguing its position next to a primary school and public housing was inappropriate.

Jolly argued the government misled the council, which originally slated the idea of several other MSIR facilities across the state.

"We're carrying the load for the whole state and it's not fair," he said.

Plans for a second safe injecting facility in Melbourne's CBD were dumped by the state government in April last year after it failed to find a "suitable location".

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