Monday b****y Monday! (From Croydon Guardian)

Monday b****y Monday!

11:35am Tuesday 11th March 2008

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Visit local shops.
1. Move large developers obviously insecurely erected ‘To Let’ board, blown down by high winds, from pavement alongside dual carriageway road to behind a convenient telephone box to prevent it being blown further, either into road to cause accident or to injure people.
Someone else had already taken the same action with a sister board.
2. Note three litter bins partially torn from mountings by vandals. Had reported two of them insecurely fixed initially almost 10 months ago, but promised action to fix them never carried out. Report damage to local council.
3.Pedestrian crossing ‘Safe to cross’ light missing. Cannot tell when safe to cross. Vandalism or vehicle damage? Broken lamp on ground therefore presume council do not know. Report damage. Council say they are aware and workman who attended did not have vehicle capacity to take damaged part safely away instead they leave it by the lamp post to be stolen or at worse used as a missile.
4. Pick up and safely bin a long length of black plastic wrapping which was wrapped around one of the small fleet of Tesco trolleys taken from the nearby store, despite their wheel locking device, and abandoned at entrance to a tower block of flats. Guess who the residents are?
5. Safely bin two large umbrellas blown inside out and just abandoned or dropped by their, probably male, owners, one left projecting well into the road.
6. Have to buy a smaller tub of M&S ice cream than I wanted as larger size still out of stock. Buy Omega 3 eggs, now in a sensible old style recyclable egg-box, the new non-recyclable, difficult to open, plastic design now apparently having been abandoned. No green, ‘not good for you’, potatoes on display to-day.
7. Pass two black sacks of rubbish apparently left by council men, acting under stupid orders, because not in adjacent wheelie bin.
Never mind that action leaves environment untidy and encourages vermin.
See someone else has solved their similar problem by ramming their black sack of rubbish into a nearby street litter bin through the conveniently large openings of the ‘new’ fixed litter bins.
8. Note inadequate unsafe old fence and hedge around a development site blown over and nearly blocking all of the pavement. Too much to move, report to council. They visit later in the day and report developer will clear pavement. Will see just what he does do and when.
9. Pass old design free standing litter bin outside local fish and chip shop. The free standing bin is the only bin out of around twenty old style bins not replaced by new fixed bins about 10 months ago.
Think if that, much used, bin is still fit for service why was money wasted on the new bins and in having them less than perfectly installed? Local council squandering council tax money yet again?
10. Pass recent house to flats conversion taking care not to trip on the six new badly and unevenly settled paving slabs or any of the other paving slabs cracked during the development. Reported the dangerously settled slabs months ago but a 3cm step cannot be dangerous enough to require county council action.
11. Note how the collection of wheelie bins, carefully selected to be in different shades of green, scattered around the front of the development because the design did not allow for them, adds to the visual amenity of the area.
12. Pass the six or so small trees, no doubt planted on the wide grass verge at the developers’ expense. In the unlikely event that they survive they will require costly maintenance and perhaps in twenty years or so will add to the visual amenity. More likely vehicles or vandals will destroy them and the grass verge will be used by vehicles to supplement the totally inadequate parking provided as part of the development. The developer should have been required to fund the provision of lay bys, in place of the grass verges which the council very occasionally has cut very untidily.
13. Pass the completely open and exposed cable suppliers street-side cable box. The door left loose after the last service visit or act of vandalism is behind the box and has been for weeks. The door is corroded and the locks/latches faulty. I hope the cables are, as I have been told, all low voltage and not a risk to inquisitive or careless children.
14. Phone Thames Water to amend account details for new payment year.
No success, their computer system has packed up. Their computer maintenance must be as bad as their water pipe maintenance.

And that is just some of the things which can be seen during one short walk in England now!