A week ago yesterday, there was a meeting of the TidyBS5 task force with council officers and Councillor Marg Hickman at the offices of Up Our Street.
It was a good opportunity for the officers to update community volunteers on what the council has done, is and will be doing.
For Stapleton Road a deep clean is planned for this year; this will mean giving the footways a thoroughly good scrub and removing chewing gum from their surfaces. In addition, hanging baskets will be provided on approx. 30 lamp posts to help make the street a bit more colourful and attractive.
The city council’s streetscene enforcement team has now moved into the area and has already had some success: 5 traders have been issued with £300 fixed penalty notices for abusing the communal bins intended for household waste only. In addition, some minor offenders have been fined smaller amounts.
Turning to communal bins, task force members have been invited to assist in devising the communal bins consultation that the council is organising for the Stapleton Road corridor. Two task force members, Hannah and myself, informed officers that we were monitoring clearance times after fly-tipping had been reported. From my own monitoring since then, communal bins seem to be implicated in some 60% of sites notified to the council.
After the update from the offices, it was pointed out to them that, while all this attention being lavished on the Stapleton Road area was appreciated, it should not detract from equally bad problems along the Lawrence Hill/Church Road corridor, home to the infamous Jane Street (see above).
During my discussion on social media with BCC’s Chief Enterprise Architect Gavin Beckett about open standards (posts passim), he invited me to submit feedback on using the council website; this will be done from the aspect of reporting street cleaning matters, where the website still has a couple of interesting foibles.
Up Our Street is organising a community litter pick on Saturday 28th March from 11 am to 1 pm. Volunteers are asked to assemble at Lawrence Hill roundabout (map). For more details, contact Lorena on 0117 954 2835.
Finally, don’t forget to sign the TidyBS5 e-petition!