Richard Baum

The Council’s Environmental Services Department have once again left me reeling with their lies and broken promises. Following hot on the heels of the missing Butterstile Lane street sign (17 weeks and counting), and the shocking disregard for local people that is the cleaning rota display (we asked for cleaning reports, they stuck up a photocopied sheet of paper), and also this week’s Ruskin Road gardens debacle (threatening letters sent to innocent residents), the Council’s Environmental Services Department have now let down St Mary’s residents for a fourth time. 

I have just been informed that the barriers promised by the Council outside St Mary’s Park have not been installed. They were promised to me by the area traffic engineer ”within 2-3 weeks” in mid-July, but have yet to appear, and tonight I was informed by the resident to whom I relayed the promise that it had been broken. I must confess that I haven’t kept a hawk-like eye on the situation myself, but mainly because I made the fatal error of believing what the Council were telling me. I am coming to learn that their promises mean very little.

Needless to say I am disappointed by this latest neglect of duty, yet I am not surprised because it is sadly what I have come to expect from a Council department which I am rapidly coming to believe serves to do little but lie to me. And if residents are promised things by Councillors and then let down because the Council fails to act, what good is that for anyone? The delay has now been 8 weeks, and once again I am forced to apologise to residents after the Council’s incompetence.

This is simply not on, and I have written in the strongest terms to the Executive Member and the Executive Director. I will have further communications this evening because I have completely lost patience with the Department now.

Rick