Sunday 22 March 2009

Mixed results




It seems no sooner do we get a notorious fly-tipping black spot in North Road ward cleaned up than it gets dumped on again. This spot is along the back of Cricket Field Row, a large field at the end of the road into Morrisons supermarket. It's only half a mile from the tip, but that doesn't stop people driving to this field to dump their rubbish. There is a warning sign, but it's been cunningly placed at the far end of the field, where no-one can actually see it. You can see it in the top right hand corner of my photo - not that it would stop this activity even if it was ten feet high.
As the top photo shows, in another corner of the field my ward colleagues Fred and Anne-Marie have managed to get the hugely overgrown shrubs, which provided a convenient hiding place for late night teenage drinkers, cut right back. A long-covered cycle path has re-emerged into the light at the same time. Local residents are very pleased with the result.
The constant struggle to keep the ward clean, in the face of anti-social activity and an under-financed Street Scene organisation, takes an awful lot of local councillors' time. It's great when we can report back on our successes, but not long before some other problem area appears which needs sorting out.

1 comment:

Mike said...

Overgrown cycle routes were a big problem last year; it was apparently the warm, wet summer which led to plants growing faster than they could be cut back. The riverside path behind the allotments off North road was only 18" wide at one point!