Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil
I think you have missed my point.
There are not enough council workers who do the tasks you mentioned in your post now and with any cuts at all in front line workers things will get worse.
We don't have enough boots on the ground cleaning our streets and maintaining our parks and open spaces. This is blatantly obvious to anyone who walks around the borough to see.
I am involved with parks and green spaces so more about it than cleansing so I will give you an example.
Green flag is a standard for parks that I really don't like. I think it should be a minimum standard but here in Hyndburn it appears to be a target many parks fall well short of. Recently it was judging time again so it was a case of every available body in the parks being judged which has left other neglected because there are not enough people to keep the parks that achieve green flag at that standard without neglecting others.
I use the work neglect often, some may think its harsh but if you look at the very few pictures I posted you will see why I use it.
I don't blame our park keepers/gardeners for this, I blame those who dont provide enough of them. Some of the pictures are of my local park, Rhyddings park, we have one bloke in there trying to look after it on his own. He works hard, is friendly, polite and really helpful but he is just one man and at times he is pulled out to work elsewhere, he has no chance of keeping it like it should be. The standard is going downhill and it will get worse unless money is put in and not taken out of parks and cleansing.
I have not mentioned the community groups that work with the councils parks dept. Together they have raised over £3.5 millions in the last 5 or so years. Without the groups working with the council most of that money would not have come to Hyndburn. Imagine how grim our parks would be now without this partnership approach we have.
Its time for the council to show us they do care, to return some of the commitment we the people have given to them and show us they do care as much as we care.
I need to take a chill pill now. |
Did you ever say any of that to Peter, I wonder?
I see he thinks that all the flowers in the borough will disappear next year because of a remark by Graham Jones, someone he simply can't seem to stop referencing. Perhaps there is a more effective way of prettying up the borough, perhaps we don't need to buy force-grown bedding of a certain colour that only flowers for two weeks at the right time, perhaps there is room for economy in the 450+ hanging baskets that all need to be watered daily or the flower towers that cost the borough £47,000 per year. Perhaps if Area Councils had been reviewed earlier then the £240,000+ per year that it is said it costs to administer them could have been diverted into actually improving the borough rather than fancy calendars and expensive meetings that few residents turn up to.
Parks and waste collections are the thing that people see first when it comes to council services because they are right there in front of them. Anyone who seriously thinks that a Labour council will make those services worse and expect to survive needs their head examining.
I personally never had a problem with Environmental Services before and I certainly don't now. They were responding to my e-mails and photos of grotspots in Rishton long before I was a councillor, giving me log numbers and an update of when they were cleared. I would still urge you all to send your photos and a brief report to
[email protected] before adding them to the Accyweb gallery as you are far more likely to get something done about it.
You're remarkably quick to have a go at the council now that it isn't headed by Cllr Britcliffe, it's such a shame you didn't point out the flaws earlier so that he could take all the glory for sorting them out.
One might almost think that someone is pulling your strings on this forum.