Forum Topic

What are pavements for?

There is a post in the middle of the narrow pavement outside the old folks home at the end of St Andrews Road close to The Fairway.On the other side of St Andrews Road an overgrown hedge blocks most of the fairly narrow pavement, and there is another post in the middle of what remains.Further along St Andrews Road the hedge outside No 39 takes up much of the pavement, while there is normally a vehicle or a skip parked well past the white line marking the parking area alongside.There are normally several other vehicles parked well past the parking limit marker along the road, although often only outside the parking zone restriction times.If I have difficulty getting through as a pedestrian without stepping into the road, it is likely to be impossible for someone with a buggy, yet vehicle owners get extremely irate if they are touched, and do not accept complaints.

Christopher Bell ● 3428d6 Comments

Yes, well - there are far too many overlarge wheelie bins.  There should be a better solution.  They bring as many problems as they solve.I wonder how many more people are living in the same area?  How many houses have been divided into flats - without adequate space for bins - without any planning permission and without any landlord management.  Councils need to work with people rather than just dictating one-size-fits-all solutions - because they don't.  Only they can't always come up with the solutions themselves.  Residents are often better at coming up with solutions - if only they had time and felt they were allowed to.  In shared accommodation this is difficult to do.

Philippa Bond ● 3426d

51 wheelie bins, 2 supermarket trolleys, 1 TV stand, 1 carpet ....That's what pavements are for and that's only one side of the street

Alison Surtees ● 3427d

St Andrews Road is a quiet residential side street in East Acton ward, (that is apart from the house extensions being built on nearly half the properties, and the through traffic trying to bypass the main junction), and home to one of the previous councillors.

Christopher Bell ● 3427d

How about inviting your local Councillors to walk around your streets with you?  Contact Maire who posts and is interested in solving the fly-tipping situation?

Philippa Bond ● 3427d

In cases where the footpath is restricted on one side by an overgrown hedge and on the other side by vehicles parked beyond the limit mark I am tempted to request a parking restriction until the hedge is cut.Last night I was trying to squeeze between a large pile of rubbish, including glass bottles, and a van parked beyond the limit mark, in an area which is supposed to be under fly-tip surveillance.

Christopher Bell ● 3427d

People.And if you are having trouble walking along them you can report that to the Council. Particularly important if you find that the pavement needs attention as tripping over broken pavements can cause you more damage than you would imagine.  It's no fun ending up in hospital or just finding it difficult to climb up any stairs or open the screw top on the milk for your tea!  Not to mention the knock-on effect to the NHS.  I do wonder what the numbers and the costs of people's falls are to them and their families as well.  I don't think that you will get a reply from the Report It bit of the LBE website which is a shame.  That is what I liked about www.fixmystreet.com which the Council has decided not to accept information from.  With that you could check when you reported something and so could everybody else so they could see if something had already been reported. LBE could have worked with My Society to improve the system to suit themselves. Other Councils and countries have:  https://www.mysociety.org/I don't care what the Council uses but it needs to suit all of us (ie the residents and the Council).  Not all of us have smartphones so it needs to be flexible.  We also don't all have access to corporate IT systems and there are times when systems are down so it needs to be accessible and usable then too.

Philippa Bond ● 3427d