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Just received confirmation of my formal complaint regarding the failure to allocate a grit/salt bin in the Caterhouse Road / Ghyllfield Road / Brackenfield Road area. I am told that this will be responded to within 10 working days. So here’s to a dry, sunny and warm April, fingers crossed……

If you get your bin collected on Fridays make sure you put it out tomorrow as they are still collecting despite it being a Good Friday.

Quite a large number of people have spoke o me about delays and problems getting their new senior citizen bus pass.

The council has found some problems in their computer systems, but hope that many passes not currently issued should be sent out by next week. If you haven’t received your pass by the end of next week please let me know.

The company responsible for the slow marking on Front St has done the work – just a day after I called and asked them. Does beg the question why when I called it was done in a day, but when the council were asked to deal with it nothing happened from November.

That said the company accepts responsibility for the work not having been done. I’m just happy the slow marking is back.

Last month I mentioned in detail my problems trying to get grit bins. If you haven’t already read, perhaps do so first before reading on:

http://markwilkes.mycouncillor.org.uk/2013/02/22/battle-of-the-grit-bins/

After being refused grit bins we negotiated with the council to get sacks of grit put in some areas but at a cost of £94 a time this is clearly unsustainable.

After meeting out on site around Caterhouse Road and Brackenfield Road and the surrounding streets with senior highways staff and pointing out the disgraceful state of the road surface, we got on to grit bins and the repeated refusal to provide any in this area.

I was promised a fast re-scoring of the area to see if we could have at least one grit bin. The response, not fast, came this week. Why it has to take so many weeks to re-score this is beyond me.

Anyway, the council has flatly refused to change its score for this area, so over 200 houses have no grit bin at all. The list of criteria the council uses to decide if an area needs a grit bin includes:

Accident History: There is nothing in the council criteria explaining what Accident History means though. There have been accidents in this area, at least one caused by ice. But no, this didn’t meet the criteria. I still have no answer as to what an accident record is!

Not on a Priority Route: So, the council will score 20 points if the site is not on a gritting route. Or so I thought. Many of the other surveys they have done included 20 points for estate roads. Suddenly though I am told that the criteria sheet – cleared by councillors, cleared by senior officers, used for over a year, IS WRONG. No points scored if it is not a Priority 1 or a Priority 2 or an OTHER route. All very odd.

Put simply I have come to the following conclusion in respect of this area: You want a grit bin Mark, we will find a way to make sure you can’t have one!

I have made a formal complaint and want to see the full explanation of what the council definition of an accident history, an “other” grit route, a slope, a bend etc etc is. They do not at their own admission have any of this documented. It is about time they did. How can you have criteria but absolutely no document to explain the criteria.

For example, a steep slope gets a certain number of points, a less steep slope fewer points, a flat road no points, but there is no document saying how steep a slope has to be to get the points – ludicrous.

What this means is that the highways officers across the county can pretty much make it up as they go along.

Meanwhile over 200 houses and NO GRIT BIN. The same goes for other areas like The Avenue/Hartside/Hudspeth in Pity Me and the Terraces behind Fram Front St. So much for an altogether better council. At least residents on these streets can now be told the truth – that the Labour council doesn’t care less that you can’t get the home help down to you in the snow, that the ambulances will have to struggle, that hard working people will have to trudge hundreds of metres in the snow and ice to find some grit, so they can get the car out to go to work. All this less than a mile from Durham City. Shameful.

So if you live on Ghyllfield Road, Brackenfield Road, Caterhouse Road, Frankland Road, your nearest grit bin is up on Flambard Road outside the Communual Hall. So if you live on Caterhouse Road you will have to WALK over 1400 metres in total there and back in the snow to carry heavy grit back to your street.

The only alternative is for local councillors to use local money to fund sacks of grit/salt, but at £94 a time this is simply not sustainable. We have had to do this but – but should we really have to?

It is clearly barking mad to have to keep finding money for a sacks of grit when a simple grit bin in the area would solve the problem. Come on Durham County Council see some sense here and stop residents having to carry salt and grit for 700 metres so they can get out to work!

When the regeneration of Pity Me Front St was completed last year I was told by one of the residents that the slow marking on the road near The Avenue hadn’t been repainted. Not such a difficult thing to ask to be fixed you’d think.

However despite numerous attempts to get this done since November, the Red rectangle of paint is still waiting for the white SLOW to be added. Not a huge thing in the scheme of things, but surely if the council has asked the contractor four months ago and on more than one occasion since to fix this, you’d think they would.

Anyway just in case it is the council who has failed to ask for this work to be done (Always a possibility!!) I won’t mention the company responsible, but come on Durham Council, if you are paying for this please at least after over 4 months of asking make sure it gets done.

Slow? Perhaps they should write DEAD SLOW on there instead. Second thoughts I’m going to call the company directly myself and ask them if they can deal with it.  Will report back on the response……..

The footpath from Front St near Oxley Terrace to Finchale Road/Old Pit (known as the black trod or wagonway by some) has now been completely cut back which should make it much easier for residents to use it. This has been an ongoing issue which I am please to say I have managed to sort out working with our frontline guys on the ground. If anyone notices any problems with dog fouling or litter please let me know as there have been issues in recent months.

If you know who it is who isn’t clearing up after their dog, please let us know the times when this person walks their dog and we can try and carry out enforcement actions anywhere around the area.

Garden Waste collections restart this week. I have asked about numerous areas being added to the program but the council says it doesn’t have the resources to do this at the moment.

If you go to the council homepage and enter in your postcode and hose number on the left hand side you will be able to find the day of the week for your collection and the date of the first collection. www.durham.gov.uk

If you don’t get a garden waste collection at the moment, please remember that you can call the council to ask for up to 6 bags of garden waste to be collected each month for free. To save money for the council, if you can, build up several sacks before calling.