Although the litter on Front St is many times better than it used to be, there has been a recent increase particularly around the North Terrace area. The police and neighbourhood wardens are taking positive action after I raised concerns and there will be more presence in the coming weeks. I am confident they will be able to bring this further under control, though as always I will continue to keep an eye on it every week. Any complaints from other areas please let me know. They will also be checking up on Newton Drive/Lund Av areas.

I attended the county plan consultation event at Framwellgate Moor from 4pm to 8pm today. Several hundred people attended. No one I met was in full support of the councils proposals, two people supported parts of it. I think that just about says it all. Please sign the petition against the building of 3425 houses on Durham City greenbelt land and write in to the council with your objections to the proposals. The more I read of the plans, the more unsustainable, environmentally damaging and socially unacceptable I think they are.

Your Lib Dem councillors have launched a petition against the County Council plans to build 3425 houses on greenbelt land around Pity Me, Brasside and Framwellgate Moor.

Durham Greenbelt Petition – Double Sided

Further updates to follow.

I have again raised concerns today at the failure to crack down on littering at the start of the new school / college year. Despite reminding the county council weeks ago of the need for action at the start of term, no or little action has been taken thus far. I am assured that there will be neighbourhood warden presence tomorrow to try and ensure that we don’t go back to the bad old days of years ago.

Clearly there has been a massive reduction in littering around Fram Front St in the last few year as I have made it a priority and I not want to see the current deterioration of the first few weeks of the school and college year to continue.

I have been out to Rosemount, Red Briar Walk, The Orchard and Bridgemere Drive with council officers today to ask for various strimming, cutting back and thinning out of hedges, verges and trees. Work should be carried out in the next couple of months depending on the area. If there is anywhere else where you know there are issues please let me know. I am also asking for action to clear the undergrowth at the rear of the terraces on Pity Me Front St once again.

Thanks to David and his team for coming out at such short notice today. Look forward to seeing the work completed.

Following my compaints about the state of the road at Hartside View, I can confirm that proper repair work has now been completed. The Avenue still has bad areas which I am chasing up.

As can be seen from the picture I put on the site last month, it really shouldn’t have been left to get that bad.

http://markwilkes.mycouncillor.org.uk/2012/08/01/hartside-the-avenue-and-hudspeth/

Now it looks much better:

I have also been assured that long standing damage on Potterhouse Terrace will be tended to in the next week or so.

I tried to log some issues with the Council’s highways action line yesterday only to receive a “Mailbox Full” email. If any resident have had similar bouncebacks try sending through again. Clearly as the main email address for residents reporting faults this shouldn’t happen. I received the following response from the council, so hopefully this will not happen again. The Highways email is hal@durham.gov.uk and you can use this for reporting faulty streetlights, potholes, pavement defects, flytipping, litter etc.

Council response:

Thanks for highlighting this issue, it is important that e-mails get through to the HAL address and as you say it is not acceptable for customers to receive a ‘mailbox full’ message. We have taken action this morning to remedy this.

The HAL address has been heavily used recently, which is normal when there are incidents of bad weather. Whilst we are up to date in terms of dealing with e-mails and there is currently no backlog (e.g. there were only 15 outstanding e-mails as at 5pm yesterday, all of which were received yesterday), the capacity of the mailbox is affected by a number of factors, not only the number of e-mails we receive. For example customers often send attachments to e-mails and we receive a lot of digital photographs (e.g. of pot holes, broken street furniture, overhanging trees etc.) which are often very useful, but do take up a significant amount of server space.

Administration of the HAL mailbox is carried out within Customer Services and practice up to now has been to archive the HAL e-mails once a month to maintain enough space to allow incoming messages. Your e-mail has shown that this may not be enough for the current workload so as of today this frequency has been increased to fortnightly to ensure that space is always available.

The issue of mailbox size is one that we will bring up with ICT, and a discussion has been arranged for later today. While unlimited space may not be practicable, an increase in size or a dedicated server may be and this will be explored. Additionally, as a result of this incident, the management team are looking at ways to improve the early warning system on all external mailboxes so that they are better able to take proactive action as customer facing mailboxes approach capacity.

Once again thank you for highlighting the issue, and I am sure that the actions taken today will help prevent a reoccurrence.

Over the last few months I have been working up a  proposal for the installation of four permanent speed visors around the area. These visors flash up a message, 30mph reminder or other things when a speeding car comes towards them. They  have a really positive effect on cutting speeding.

We already have some sites in the area where temporary visors are installed but this means that the visors are only in place for a few weeks a year at each location and so are not as effective.

The new permanent visors, if the AAP and Villages Committee agree to the proposal will be:

On the road into Brasside, between Framwellgate Moor and Pity Me on Front St near the electricity substation, on the main road through Witton Gilbert,  and on the main road through Bearpark. All these locations have evidence of speeding issues over many years, and the police and council officers support measures to reduce speeding in these locations.

Hopefully the AAP will support the application for funding, which will be matched with money from the local area budgets provided to myself and your other county councillor to improve the area.

If you feel that there is a particular road where there are speeding issues and are interested in working with the police and council to tackle this, it is possible to arrange for a Community Speedwatch where residents and the police carry out a survey at a particular location, and where drivers who are speeding can be written to to warn them. This then allows evidence to be built up to determine if enforcement action needs to be taken on a particular road.

I have carried out a number of these speedwatches in the last few years with residents and officers including on Abbey Road in Pity Me, Front St and High Carr Road Framwellgate Moor and Sacriston Lane in Witton Gilbert.

I attended Witton Gilbert Parish Council yesterday where a number of issues were discussed, including the improvement in grass cutting in the village since I raised serious issues with management. There are still strimming problems and overgrown areas around the village which are due to be attended to in the next week, but if anyone knows of any areas in Witton or the other villages I cover please let me know.

Following my complaint about the failure of the council to arrange an event in Framwellgate Moor on the County Plan, (see below) the council has now agreed to this, on 10th October from 4pm to 8pm at Framwellgate Moor Community Centre.

Shouldn’t have had to push for this, but good that they have realised the importance.