You may have noticed that the streets of Greenwich have been far from weed-free. Darryl over at 853 certainly noticed it, and a debate sprung up (a bit like the weeds) over whose responsibility it is to keep the streets clean.
Councillor Mary Mills – the emailing, blogging and even tweeting Councillor – sent out a statement this week from Cllr Maureen O’Mara – the cabinet member for Neighbourhood Services.
“Weed growth and its control has proved to be a real problem this year. We are doing our best to deal with this issue and can only apologise to residents for this happening. I could blame the EU for new regulations that stipulate we have to use a new weed removal spray, meaning it takes longer to get rid of weeds, but I do not intend to do that. We have not cleared weeds as quickly as we should have this year and I apologise to residents for that. We are putting more resources into weed control to ensure that the remaining weeds are dealt with swiftly and that we tackle any regrowth very quickly. I will do my best to make sure that this.”
It’s just a shame this has to come via Mary, who shouldn’t have to act as a go-between on behalf of a council leadership which is too grand to bother communicating with the people they’re meant to be working for.
I do like the mention of new regulations- yeah, like they’re the only council that’s got to work out what to do. Do they never talk to other councils?