If there was a complaint box in the town hall, it would certainly overflow… This is evidenced by the numbers from the thousands of requests submitted by the people of Thessaloniki in 2024, both to the call center of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, to the electronic application “Improve my City” and to the new institution of the “Deputy Mayor Service”, in order to express everything that bothers them in the city and ask for their solution, with the aim of improving everyday life.

It is indicative that over the course of the year, the three above municipal services received a total of 44,384 requests – complaints. “Thousands of citizens have contacted the municipality, in order to inform us of their requests, complaints, ideas and proposals, with the aim of improving the city and, by extension, the daily life of all of us,” he told APE-MPE the deputy mayor for Digital Policy and Electronic Government of the municipality of Thessaloniki, Kostas Vassilopoulos.

In particular, since the beginning of the year, 34,863 requests have been “uploaded” to the “Improve my City” electronic application, where citizens have the opportunity to accompany their complaint with a relevant photo taken with their mobile phone, of which 5,781 are pending, while the rest have already been settled.

Another 9,315 complaints were received by the “Citizen Service Line”, which started operating since last June, with citizens since then calling the five-digit number 15192 and informing the municipal services of every wrong or reverse happening in the city. It is characteristic that with the exception of August, where the requests were only 867, all the other months showed an “explosive” increase, reaching almost 2,000 complaints in October.

As for the institution of the “Deputy Mayor Service”, which was put into effect from the middle of last September, an additional 206 citizens visited the town hall in the afternoon to submit their requests on a personal level, to a deputy mayor of the Angeloudis administration. Subsequently, the deputy mayor informed the competent services, with the aim of fixing the problem as soon as possible.

“Requests and complaints have been processed – answered at a rate that exceeds 90%, with the help of the municipal services, which in these 12 months, made enormous efforts to serve the citizens”, adds Mr. Vassilopoulos.

What are the …most popular complaints

The collection of bulky objects, according to the data, is the “No. 1” request of residents in all neighborhoods, who call the municipal services in every way and inform about rubble, mattresses, furniture and all kinds of objects that are thrown in streets and sidewalks, making it difficult for pedestrians to move freely.

In the second place of the requests are the abandoned I.X. cars, which are abandoned by their owners for a long time, thus occupying valuable parking spaces and being sources of contamination.

Immediately after, there are complaints about the pruning and planting of trees as well as the restoration of the sidewalks that carry risks for accidents, along with the sweeping – sweeping of the streets and also the burned out lamps.

“We are not complacent and given that “the enemy of the good is the best”, the efforts within 2025 will be intensified to serve an even greater number of citizens”, adds the deputy mayor.