Front walls replaced for £1!
CITY COUNCIL SCHEME TO SPRUCE UP STREET SCENE
MORE than £160,000 has been spent by Leicester City Council on repairing and replacing the front garden walls of private homes.
Twenty-four properties along Green Lane Road, in Spinney Hills, have had damaged or missing boundary walls replaced in a bid to smarten up the area.
Bricklaying students from Leicester College have been involved in the project to help them gain skills.
Ex-offenders have also been involved in the work.
The scheme aims to improve the look of the street by providing a uniform stretch of front garden walls and gates on the terraced houses on the outbound route, as far as its junction with East Park Road.
A similar scheme was carried out by the city council in summer 2019 along a section of Evington Road and St Stephen’s Road, where £150,000 was invested in rebuilding or replacing shabby and broken front walls and gates.
In both areas, many of the terraced houses had missing front garden walls, where they had either collapsed in disrepair or been removed over time and not replaced.
In some cases, householders had not rebuilt them to prevent them being used by people congregating and sitting on them, and due to concerns about related antisocial behaviour.
The city council entered into legal agreements with the property owners to carry out the work, to remove any existing walls in poor condition and replace them with metre-high boundary walls, with the option of a new metal gate.
Householders contribute a nominal sum of £1 each to enter into the agreements with the council for the work to be done.
Assistant mayor Kirk Master said:
“Green Lane Road is part of a bustling community and a busy route through North Evington, but unfortunately parts of it look very shabby due to the number of missing or damaged garden walls facing on to the street.
“This work is really helping to improve the appearance of this route and the surrounding area, and by entering into an agreement with Leicester College we are giving construction students the chance to get involved and hone their skills.
“Also, in line with our pledge to support former offenders in turning their lives around through securing skills and jobs, we’ve involved a number of local ex-offenders in carrying out this work.
“We know from doing this work previously that this sort of investment can make a huge difference both to the appearance and safety of communities, and in terms of attracting people to invest more in those neighbourhoods as a result.”