Thursday, November 10, 2005
Verging on the ridiculous?
This summer many residents complained to us about long grass and over-grown vegetation and we have also noticed that the grass in local parks has been mown only once a week.
The Council’s failure to properly manage the banks, verges and undeveloped land in St. Mellons lies with the way responsibility for these jobs is spread between different departments.
We want the Council to make one department responsible. Seems a simple concept doesn’t it? If this were done we could expect efficient and regular grass cutting throughout Cardiff, rather than the disjointed approach we have at present.
Three years ago we were told a “working group” would develop proposals to resolve the problem. When I enquired about the group’s progress last year, I was told no such group existed and no-one can remember a decision to set it up!
The problem was highlighted last August when an 11 year-old local boy was killed by a car on Coleford Drive. The child’s mother - rightly in my opinion - laid part of the blame for the tragedy on the Council’s failure to cut back the vegetation, spilling into the road, near the point where her son died. We had been asking for this section of verge to be regularly cut since 2002!
The boy’s mother and I jointly called on the Council to schedule regular verge maintenance in St. Mellons and the Echo carried the story.
Councillor Elgan Morgan, Executive Member for the Environment backed the cut, for which we are grateful and he shares our view that the Council must resolve the problem permanently.
We have prepared a “notice of motion” which if agreed by Councillors, will make one department responsible for maintaining all grass and shrubs on Council land throughout the city.
We expect the motion to be supported by all Councillors because proper management of roadside verges can be a matter of life or death.
Councillor Ralph Cook
The Council’s failure to properly manage the banks, verges and undeveloped land in St. Mellons lies with the way responsibility for these jobs is spread between different departments.
We want the Council to make one department responsible. Seems a simple concept doesn’t it? If this were done we could expect efficient and regular grass cutting throughout Cardiff, rather than the disjointed approach we have at present.
Three years ago we were told a “working group” would develop proposals to resolve the problem. When I enquired about the group’s progress last year, I was told no such group existed and no-one can remember a decision to set it up!
The problem was highlighted last August when an 11 year-old local boy was killed by a car on Coleford Drive. The child’s mother - rightly in my opinion - laid part of the blame for the tragedy on the Council’s failure to cut back the vegetation, spilling into the road, near the point where her son died. We had been asking for this section of verge to be regularly cut since 2002!
The boy’s mother and I jointly called on the Council to schedule regular verge maintenance in St. Mellons and the Echo carried the story.
Councillor Elgan Morgan, Executive Member for the Environment backed the cut, for which we are grateful and he shares our view that the Council must resolve the problem permanently.
We have prepared a “notice of motion” which if agreed by Councillors, will make one department responsible for maintaining all grass and shrubs on Council land throughout the city.
We expect the motion to be supported by all Councillors because proper management of roadside verges can be a matter of life or death.
Councillor Ralph Cook
