WASTE IN WEST BANK
IN REPLY to the letter published last week referring to ‘Non existent services’.
Normally I would not answer such a (what’s the word) oh yes ‘farce letter’, but as a true born and bred resident and one who has volunteered in almost all community events as a child and adult, I thought let’s answer it.
The strange leaflet delivered – we thought the leaflet was very self explanatory, it informed residents what was happening on the day, locations of skips and away to get help, even providing refreshments for those taking part, if they had a problem with the leaflet they could have called the call centre number provided and we could have helped explain it better.
The dangerous items – I take it you as a responsible resident have by now notified the council of the loads of dangerous stuff you mentioned? If not I suggest you report these items to the call centre staff free on: 0303 333 4300. Personally as hands-on, on the day, I found no dangerous stuff and no reports came to me that others did.
Can I assure you prior to any litter pick, the areas covered had been risk assessed by team leaders, no child has been put at risk, and equipment was provided to protect them. And how cynical to say we are using the children for slave labour, the children taking part wanted to and have loved doing this, at least they are putting something back into their commu- nity, not sitting back letting others do it for them. The sarcastic remark ‘oh they get a free certificate’.
The children will be rewarded for their actions with a certificate, class rewards and visits to recycling plants to educate them and show how our waste is treated.
The local residential gardener went when I was a girl over 50 years ago, the Victoria Promenade gardens are tended by HBC, and a good job our guys are doing.
When you say look at the promenade, please again contact the call centre and air your views to the people who can investigate your complaints. Dog fouling. Is this the councils fault? It is not the council that walk the dogs, dog fouling is down to the minority of irresponsible dog owners who take their dogs for walks and don’t pick up the poo.
Oh by the way I do have have a dog and we do pick up our dog’s poo. The bins were taken away again through the Conservative Government cuts, they must be the fools you refer to!
The street cleaners have not gone, the service has had to be reduced, dare I say again through Conservative Government cuts.
Not sure who you personally refer to about allowing the area to be destroyed by and wasting paid time on exotic long holidays.
As one of the local councillors in this borough I get an allowance not a wage, there are a number of items I pay for from this money, all this info is ● available for the public to see. As for long exotic holidays, I wish! Last time I went abroad was over 12 months ago, and if I and my husband can afford to, why shouldn’t I? We all do our jobs, we hold regular surgeries and available to residents by phone, text and emails 24/7.
Regarding the loss of our post office, the council was not responsible for it going, the then post master retired, (Frank provided a valuable service for years and we all miss him) and a small number of residents used it then. I along with other residents have tried for years even prior to closure, to relocate the service into the local shop. We have looked into the community owning the service as a co-operative scheme by Investigating the possibility of renovating the dilapidated property into a business financially supported by a rental property above, we even looked at the community centre and the church as locations. The council are aware of the dwindling services and are doing their very best to encourage businesses into the area.
The local bus service – a public meeting was called by Cllr Stan Hill and myself, in attendance was the bus company director Colin Stanford to answer all residents questions and explain the serious situation the service was in over 18 months ago, he explained to residents that numbers using the service were low and at times no users at all.
The bus company has and is still subsidising the service. Our service is not the only one to suffer, other bus services throughout the borough have, this is also happening nationally all over the country.
To help you understand how your council tax payments are spent, please call into our call centre were one of our very experienced members of staff will explain, or we could have you sent an explanatory leaflet. I am sure this information has been sent out in the Inside Halton local magazine before, maybe you missed it!
Prior to the clean up day, Jiggy childcare run by Lesley New and and her trained childcare staff, along with Jessica Mimns West Bank Academy took children in parts of the area to litter pick, and identify areas such as Alice Court that could be improved by growing flowers and making a better place for our elderly residents to live by, these projects are fully supported by Wendy Ratcliffe HHT.
Lesley and Jessica also spent hours volunteering on the day. Unsung heroes. Wendy is hoping to introduce the warden scheme by spring next years were residents and children in the area can take pride in the area they live in (I am sure if you want to put something back, you could volunteer to take part).
Residents flocked to the skips and many were helped to dispose of items too big for them to move, white goods were taken separately. The amount of waste is being calculated by the teams, but I have in all my years doing clean ups never seen so many skips be filled and refilled. Both Halton Housing Trust and Halton Borough Council teams did a brilliant job, they never stopped from 7.45am-1pm and beyond.
Unfortunately some residents carried on dumping items well after the deadline, so I will apologise to the residents who were affected by this and will do my best to have it rectified.
If residents who continually dump items around this area stopped, we would be able to invest the money we spend now in to more productive schemes, other that costly time consuming removals we do now.
Aliens didn’t fly over West Bank and say let’s drop loads of litter here, this was down to those irresponsible people who live here, they should made to clean it up.
To those who take pride and do not abuse the area, a big thank you.
I would say that the day was a resounding success wouldn’t you!