Angry People in Local Newspapers

by Alistair Coleman

  ‘If people want to have their dogs and families on the beach, walk that way – if you want to have a dog-free time for five months of the year, you’ve got the other side.’

  The first resident added: ‘I have one question for the people who are stealing and vandalising the signs and making life hell in this village: why won’t you share?’

  “why won’t you share?”

  The decision to introduce dog restrictions was made after the council received complaints from families who had been using the beach.

  The council conducted an independent survey of all residents last year asking them their thoughts about dogs on the beach.

  The response rate for the survey was fifty-two per cent, with seventy-four per cent saying they would welcome dog restrictions during the peak summer months.

  Councillor Moores said: ‘The survey came back with the overwhelming response in favour of some form of restriction on dogs.

  ‘It’s not a ban; it’s just a form of control and restriction. Instow is a dog-friendly village and we want to maintain it as that, but we can’t have a free-for-all and that’s what it’s becoming.

  We can’t have a free-for-all and that’s what it’s becoming

  ‘We have a duty as a parish council to ensure everybody using amenities is welcome, but in some situations you have to have restrictions to make it work.’

  Here’s the wording as it appears on the signs:

  Dogs are allowed without restriction on the areas of the beach coloured gold on the map.

  Dogs are not permitted on certain sections of the beach from 1st May to 30th September each year.

  The restricted area is highlighted in pink on the map and stretches between the Quay and Lane End Road.

  Dog owners must keep their dogs in sight and under control at all times.

  Dog owners must clean up after their dogs at all times and dispose of the result in the dog litter bins provided.

  One of the arguments put forward against the restriction of dogs on the beach is that businesses in the village will suffer.

  We asked the councillor what he thought about that.

  He said: ‘I don’t see how business would suffer. I’ve spoken to several businesses along the parade and they have no problems with the restrictions.

  ‘Dog walkers will still come here and they still have the majority of the beach to walk their dogs on.

  ‘I really don’t see how businesses will suffer.’

  Are the restrictions enforceable? In short, no. But Councillor Moores hopes locals and visitors will respect them.

  He said: ‘We would expect the community to abide by the code and hope people will respect these rules.

  ‘The code is there for our village after all. I don’t believe enforcement would actually work – no one is banning dogs, there’s still loads of space for dogs and walkers.

  ‘Instow is definitely still a dog-friendly village.’

  A fuming Plymouth woman is living in fear that a large tree is going to crush her property and cause serious injury.

  The resident, who has lived in her town for fifty years, says that she ‘wants the tree down’ before disaster strikes in her road.

  The tree, which is several years old, has been a nightmare for Christine and her neighbours for ages.

  She said a branch which collapsed years ago could have killed a child if her late brother’s car hadn’t been in the way. Now she’s demanding the council take action once and for all and banish it from the community.

  The council has yet to respond to The Herald about the saga.

  Disgruntled Christine said: ‘I’m not the only one who wants the tree in this street gone. It is bending over on to my house and its roots are lifting up the car park and my driveway.

  ‘I’ve been on to the city council for years and years about the tree outside my property.

  I’m not the only one who wants the tree in this street gone

  ‘When my brother was alive one of the main branches came down from the top and if he hadn’t had his car there, it could have killed a kid. After he passed away, I still carried on with trying to get it moved or cut down.

  ‘They don’t want to know because it’s a healthy tree, but they’ll cut down healthy trees along other streets and pavements that belong to Plymouth Community Homes. There is no way there is a law for one and a law for another.

  ‘My hope is to get it down all together and get the roots up, then they can’t cause anyone to fall over on my pathway or trouble for my water mains.’

  Several other trees in the area have been removed due to the redevelopment of the town to make way for the fifth phase of development in the area.

  There is no way there is a law for one and a law for another

  The Herald recently reported how Woodville Road has become a ghost town as families who have lived on the street for decades have been moved out to make way for the 143 new homes planned for the site. The large scale regeneration scheme, one of the biggest projects of a generation, is due to be completed by 2020.

  But with this has come the news that many healthy trees – believed to be more than sixty – have had to be chopped down. Trees across the road from Christine’s property have been felled – but these were owned by Plymouth Community Homes.

  Plymouth City Council said: ‘We are aware of Ms Horton’s concerns and will be contacting her directly to deal with her enquiry.

  ‘As always, we would advise all residents who have an issue with trees to contact us directly by using our online self-service system as this is the quickest and most effective way of ensuring that the relevant team is notified.’

  Residents living in a Trowbridge housing estate are at the end of their tether with overgrowing brambles on their road.

  According to a retired milkman who lives in the estate, residents have been battling Wiltshire Council over the problem for a decade and now want action to be taken.

  Mr Collins said: ‘We have been battling the council for over ten years but they have done nothing about it.

  ‘It’s untidy and it’s blocking the back gate of someone’s garden. If there was a fire in their house which blocked them from getting out of the front door, they certainly wouldn’t be able to get out the back as the bushes are blocking their exit.

  ‘It has been going on for too long now and we are fed up. I have been out to cut it a few times and so has my son, but we want a permanent solution.

  We are fed up

  It’s unsafe as there are lots of brambles sticking out which could easily catch someone in the eye, and it also looks bad.’

  A Wiltshire Council spokesperson said: ‘This area was already programmed to be cut back soon, however we arranged for it to be done earlier this week, which will hopefully help with some of the issues.

  ‘We would remind residents that they too have a responsibility to maintain their own gardens and land so it doesn’t encroach footways, roads and other people’s properties.’

  Brambles are a common problem, especially in neglected areas or under hedges.

  They can be difficult to eradicate once they have become established and Mr Collins thinks that just cutting them will not get rid of the problem due to this trait.

  He said: ‘Simply trimming the brambles isn’t good enough – it will just grow back, as we have seen many times over the years.

  I’m not an expert so I don’t know what that solution is

  ‘We need a permanent solution or we will be in the same position again. I’m not an expert so I don’t know what that solution is, but I know that just cutting it back won’t solve the problem forever.’

  He says all the city centre should have been repaved for the City of Culture.

  A Hull man says ‘dangerous’ city centre paving has still not been repaired despite first raising his concerns two years ago.

  Mr Applegate told us he has fallen in Prospect Street due to uneven paving slabs twice, but despite reporting it to Hull City Council, he says
nothing has been done.

  The retired marine electrician said: ‘Just about every day I walk into town and do my shopping in Prospect Centre. You can just see the pavement is uneven, it’s shambolic in some places.’

  “it’s shambolic”

  ‘It causes a problem for people with pushchairs and mobility scooters … I’ve seen [people] almost take a run up at it to get over some of the paving on Prospect Street.’

  “I’ve seen [people] almost take a run up at it”

  Mr Applegate, who lives in west Hull, said he wrote to councillor Stephen Brady more than two years ago about his concerns. In his response, the then leader of Hull City Council told Mr Applegate in January 2016 his letter had been forwarded to the council’s Highways Department.

  But two years after Mr Applegate told the Mail he felt his concerns had been ignored by the council, nothing has changed to improve the paving.

  Photos taken this week and those taken in 2016 show there has been very little change to the pavements in Prospect Street during the two-year period.

  Mr Applegate believes the work done in the city centre as part of 2017 City of Culture year should have looked to improve the city on a wider scale.

  He said: ‘They’ve put ornaments up recently in the city, like the new sculpture in Queen’s Gardens, but rather than a new ornament I’d prefer to walk safely in the town.’

  Mr Applegate said he was pleased with the paving work done in Victoria Square and beyond, but said it should not have stopped there.

  He said: ‘They did all that work for Hull City of Culture and what they did in and around Victoria Square looks great, but they only did up to Story Street, is that where the City of Culture stops? It all needed doing.’

  In response to Mr Applegate’s claims, the council urged members of the public to report any issues to them so work can be done.

  A spokesman said: ‘Members of the public are encouraged to report loose blocks and pavings found in public footways so the Highways Team can ensure these are either repaired, replaced or made safe at the earliest opportunity.’

  A developer has been accused of turning green belt scrub woodland into a scarred landscape akin to the aftermath of the Battle of the Somme.

  Residents in Lower Kingswood are furious after a field thick with vegetation was cleared and the earth piled up.

  While within his rights to clear the land, the owner did not have permission to change the shape of the landscape and Reigate and Banstead Borough Council has now ordered him to reinstate the land.

  Nearby residents were horrified when heavy machinery cleared trees and thick scrub from the large field last month and their cause was also taken up by a Reigate MP, who expressed his horror.

  One lady who has lived in the area for more than forty years said: ‘How can green belt land be destroyed like this, and nothing can stop it? I think the council have been very good, but it happened so quickly, they couldn’t do anything until the earth had already been vandalised.

  It looks like a battlefield

  ‘It looks like a battlefield, it looks like the Somme, I have never seen anything like it. It is unbelievable.’

  The MP called the works ‘a shocking piece of environmental vandalism’.

  Residents said they were initially told that the land, which once had post-war pre-fabricated houses on it, was just being ‘cleared’. Their alarm grew, however, as earthworks took place and large red gates went up.

  But the owner, a developer with a portfolio which includes flats and houses in the Croydon area, has told Get Surrey he hopes to build homes on it.

  A borough councillor for Kingswood and Burgh Heath has been keeping in close contact with residents as matters have unfolded and said a lot of anguish would have been avoided if neighbours had known about the works in advance.

  ‘To get up in the morning and look out and see bulldozers smashing down trees is, I think, really upsetting for people,’ he said.

  ‘That was the feeling in the first couple of weeks. People were literally looking and going, “Oh my God, what is happening there, that is awful.” ’

  I have never seen anything like it

  The director of the property development company, which recently bought the land, said: ‘We are currently evaluating the site. We will be working with the council and all interested parties to develop an application for a sympathetic residential scheme. This will include affordable housing and self-build units.

  ‘We are in the early stages but would welcome all contributions of ideas that will benefit the local community.’

  The deputy development manager at Reigate and Banstead Borough Council said the authority first received reports in March about work to clear trees and scrub on the site.

  He said: ‘Whilst the land is in the green belt there was no breach of planning control in the work that was ongoing at the time.

  ‘The council has not received a planning application for this site, but having received further reports of changes in [ground] levels we followed up with further investigation and met with the owners.

  ‘The changes in levels on the site and the gates that have also been erected, in the council’s opinion, amount to engineering works that require planning permission and are in breach of planning control.

  ‘We continue to investigate and are currently waiting for confirmation from the owners that the grading of the land will be reinstated and the foundations of the historical development that had been uncovered be covered back up. We hope that this will be resolved through co-operation but the possibility of more formal action also remainsan option.’

  Since providing their statement, the council has received a formal application for pre-planning application advice.

  ‘Risky’ lights fitted to bollards as part of Worcester’s riverside spruce-up are to be safety checked after claims they could damage children’s eyes.

  The LED (light-emitting diode) lights were fitted in the new bollards at Diglis Parade and Kleve Walk by the river Severn, last year.

  Mr Arnold, an engineer and former scientist, told the county council last autumn the low-level LED lights posed a risk to young children’s eyesight if they stared into them for too long.

  He wrote to Worcestershire County Council, and they carried out independent lab tests which they say confirmed the lights ‘met the British Standards and European Codes of Safety’.

  However, they accept there is a risk, albeit one they have qualified as ‘slight’, if a young child in a pushchair was left twenty centimetres or closer and looked into the light for a sustained period of roughly more than a hundred seconds as children’s eyes are more sensitive than adults.

  In his letter, Mr Arnold said that the lights’ manufacturer, Phillips, classed them in the moderate risk category if stared at from a distance of less than a foot.

  He also wrote to the Health Protection Agency (HPA), and the HPA-affiliated Centre for Radiation, Chemicals and Environmental Hazards has suggested a diffuser be applied, or the brightness reduced.

  Mr Arnold said: ‘The HPA say advice has been given and the council needs to come back with something that is safe.

  if it can happen it will happen

  ‘It is a concerning issue, and I am not alone in highlighting the glare of those lights. The council have introduced something that is going to be there for some years, and it is a hazard which must be addressed.

  ‘By saying it is a slight risk – well, my answer to that is if it can happen it will happen.’

  Mr Arnold says there would be no issue if the council had installed the taller ordinary streetlight columns, as the light would be spread out while still lighting the path and river bank.

  A county council spokesman said: ‘Despite the extremely low risk levels and unlikelihood of such an occurrence, we’re looking into whether alterations might be possible to reduce this low risk even further.’

  As we previously reported, residents of Malvern have complained new county council LED streetlamp
s in their road have lit up their homes ‘like a football stadium’.

  The county council fitted a cover on one of the streetlamps to dim the light following residents’ complaints.

  Residents have rejoiced after a stinking bin full of rubbish was cleared from a council block forecourt after a year.

  In Wednesday’s paper we told how local resident Mr Gardner has complained to bin men and the council about the situation.

  He said he and his fellow residents of the area in Brighton were ‘up in arms’ over the ‘stinking’ bin, which fell off a lorry while being picked up last summer and has been left out ever since.

  It was removed by City Clean staff at 3pm on Thursday.

  Yesterday Mr Gardner said: ‘It shouldn’t have taken so long but everybody’s very pleased it’s gone.

  “It shouldn’t have taken so long”

  ‘I’d like to thank The Argus. It’s a sad situation that it only got solved after the paper got involved – I really think otherwise it’d still be there next summer.’

  “It’s a sad situation that it only got solved after the paper got involved”

  Queens Park ward councillor Adrian Morris said he had been informed the matter had been dealt with.

  He wrote: ‘Please remember that if a resident contacts any councillor first we can react quickly and get issues resolved. We also have many contacts on the council who we work with on a daily basis. That also includes all emergency services.’

  This is the fourth time in a month Brighton and Hove City Council has responded swiftly to a matter raised by The Argus.

  Editor Arron Hendy said: ‘It’s great to see the council being so responsive and we’d like to thank them for acting so quickly on matters of concern to Argus readers.’

  Several weeks ago the council found space for children who had missed out on a place at either Dorothy Stringer or Varndean school. After initially saying temporary classrooms would be impossible to build before September, the council came to a cross-party agreement after The Argus contacted opposition councillors over the issue.