Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Standing on street corners has never been so much fun...
Last night was the first of (what I hope will be) many street surgeries in St Mary's, when cllr O'Hanlon and I can meet residents on their home patch and talk about the issues affecting them.
I was at Agecroft road East/West and Sandy Lane last night for 45 minutes, before holding a second surgery at Gardner Road / Harold Street. Lots of people came down to say hello, and there's a lot of case work to take away and work on in the coming few days - everything from major planning applications to Japanese knotweed!
I feared that I may have ended up stood on a street corner alone and looking shifty, but I was kept occupied the whole time, which was fantastic. No arrests for loitering means that, all in all, the evening was a success!
One issue that did come up more than once was street cleaning. I must have been contacted on half a dozen occasions now by reisdents concerned about the state of their streets. I don't know if more people are dropping litter, or cleaning is difficult because of parked cars, but it seems that the streets aren't being cleaned often enough or well enough to please local people. The Council have said that every street in the Borough is cleaned every six weeks (with ones in commercial centres like Bury New Road through Prestwich Village cleaned much more frequently), but a lot of residents seem to doubt this because of the state of the streets. I have asked people to be my eyes and ears on this, and report back in 12 weeks time. The street should've been cleaned twice by then, so if it hasn't, we can ask questions about the reasons why! And if it has been cleaned, but needs to be cleaned more frequently, we can explore alternatives like more public bins, more effective equipment, or more targeted intervention. But we can only do this with your help - so keep an eye on the state of your street, and keep in touch.
Rick
I was at Agecroft road East/West and Sandy Lane last night for 45 minutes, before holding a second surgery at Gardner Road / Harold Street. Lots of people came down to say hello, and there's a lot of case work to take away and work on in the coming few days - everything from major planning applications to Japanese knotweed!
I feared that I may have ended up stood on a street corner alone and looking shifty, but I was kept occupied the whole time, which was fantastic. No arrests for loitering means that, all in all, the evening was a success!
One issue that did come up more than once was street cleaning. I must have been contacted on half a dozen occasions now by reisdents concerned about the state of their streets. I don't know if more people are dropping litter, or cleaning is difficult because of parked cars, but it seems that the streets aren't being cleaned often enough or well enough to please local people. The Council have said that every street in the Borough is cleaned every six weeks (with ones in commercial centres like Bury New Road through Prestwich Village cleaned much more frequently), but a lot of residents seem to doubt this because of the state of the streets. I have asked people to be my eyes and ears on this, and report back in 12 weeks time. The street should've been cleaned twice by then, so if it hasn't, we can ask questions about the reasons why! And if it has been cleaned, but needs to be cleaned more frequently, we can explore alternatives like more public bins, more effective equipment, or more targeted intervention. But we can only do this with your help - so keep an eye on the state of your street, and keep in touch.
Rick
# posted by Richard Baum @ 12:06 
