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It is now seven WORKING days since our chairman raised the question of road sweeping at the Environmantal Forum - and showed our "video nasty" of a large weed growing from a crack in the gulley between the road and the raised pavement in Union Street.
That is six working days for Gloucester City Services to come an sweep the street! But no sign of a road sweeper Are they an extinct specie?
From what we are told, our chairman had a "robust" conversation with the chair of the Gloucester City Services Board who was quick to point out that his workforce was very conscientious.
Obviously, someone at Gloucester City Services is not being conscientious, or our street would have been swept by now. The "contract", we are told, says that the street has to be swept once every two weeks.
Now we don't know exactly how long our prized weed has been there, but it is more than four inches high and is quite "bushy". It seems to suggest that the street has not been swept for months!
Gloucester City Services and the Director of Development of Gloucester City Services say that the twice-yearly weed spray can only use some low-power weed killer for environmental reasons.
But a couple of years ago, a "Man from the Ministry" spoke at Environmental Forum on the subject of weed spraying. And the government official was asked the question by Kingsholm TCC about road sweeping. He confirmed that a stiff brush over the surface every couple of weeks was a very effective form of weed control!
Pity no one from the Council acted on that comment from the Government ... but then, since when have local authorities every taken too much notice of government?
Still no minutes of our September meeting! And outr October meeting in on Tuesday evening of next week! Aparantly, the excuse being given is that the floppy disc used for the minutes has been mislaid!
Has the council looked under the large pile of "wrong sort of leaves"?
Agenda papers have come for Tenants Forum, being held next Tuesday. For the first time in the almost 10 year history of the Tenants Forum, a full-blown meeting is being held in the morning!
Unfortunately, the two tenant representatives from Kingsholm are both in employment. So for the first time in Forum history, the Kingsholm estate will not be represented - and we are the only tenant group with a 100 per cent attendance record!
So much for equal opportunities at Gloucester City Council! There appears to be no equality of opportunity for those in employment.
We raised the question with an officer in the Housing Department and were told that we could express our view at the meeting, when the matter of when Forum would be holding future pow-wows.
It took quite a while to get through to this person that our representatives worked and would not be at the meeting and were therefore denied of inflencing the discussion!