Originally Posted by Neil (Post 914854)

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.

Originally Posted by garinda (Post 914873)

Slightly off topic, but if the alley off Dutton Street is a mess today, and I photograph it on my phone, is there a way of posting it on here?

I'm a bit thick when it comes to stuff like that.

Originally Posted by Ken Moss (Post 914875)

Did you ever say any of that to Peter, I wonder?

Originally Posted by Ken Moss (Post 914878)

You can always phone 01254 388111 and report it to the Enquiries Team who will forward the details to the cleansing department.

Originally Posted by Ken Moss (Post 914875)

perhaps there is room for economy in the 450+ hanging baskets that all need to be watered daily .

Originally Posted by garinda (Post 914882)

Ok, I will.

I do report things there. Usually stuff dumped in Ossy.

It just suprises me this particular location has been a hazard, and an eye-sore for an absolute age, being so close as it is to the Town Hall.

Originally Posted by Tealeaf (Post 914883)

Why do you need to water flower baskets daily when it rains every day in Accy?

Originally Posted by Tealeaf (Post 914883)

Why do you need to water flower baskets daily when it rains every day in Accy?

Originally Posted by Ken Moss (Post 914886)

You don't mean since......before May, do you?

I think you'll find you're probably mistaken there, old boy. The streets were paved with gold back in those halcyon days, there were no grotspots and the council was run by people who really knew how to connect with the public.

Sorry, I seem to have slipped on a pair of Conservative rose-tinted glasses by mistake.

Originally Posted by Ken Moss (Post 914888)

I have been told that the flower towers and hanging baskets each have their own watering contracts which cost around £6,000 per year. The 40 bedding troughs along Eastgate are watered weekly by HBC staff.

More efficient ways of having floral displays are being looked into but this does not mean that they will disappear under an evil Labour council.

Originally Posted by garinda (Post 914891)

Water, and lack of it for hanging baskets, has been discussed in this thread before...

http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/f...ney-18481.html

Originally Posted by Ken Moss (Post 914888)

I have been told that the flower towers and hanging baskets each have their own watering contracts which cost around £6,000 per year. The 40 bedding troughs along Eastgate are watered weekly by HBC staff.

More efficient ways of having floral displays are being looked into but this does not mean that they will disappear under an evil Labour council.

Originally Posted by garinda (Post 291469)

After a little research I've found from the budget papers of the area council meeting minutes that the cost of making and installing the hanging baskets was FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A disgraceful amount of money to waste when they have died within a few short weeks, because no one can even reach them to give them water.

The woman who owns the florist opposite the Town Hall is livid. She has two dead ones they placed seventeen feet from the floor, swinging dead in the breeze outside her shop.

I love flowers and the idea of greening up our area, but if you haven't got the sense to think about maintenance don't waste our bloody money.

Hang your head in shame Mr Britcliffe. Preferably seventeen feet off the floor so we can't water it!!!

Originally Posted by garinda (Post 914895)

The cost for the baskets in 2006 was £5,000.


http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/f...s-22480-2.html

Originally Posted by Ken Moss (Post 914875)

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.

Originally Posted by Ken Moss (Post 914886)

You don't mean since......before May, do you?

I think you'll find you're probably mistaken there, old boy. The streets were paved with gold back in those halcyon days, there were no grotspots and the council was run by people who really knew how to connect with the public.

Sorry, I seem to have slipped on a pair of Conservative rose-tinted glasses by mistake.