Get weeding those pavements!

12.11.31am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 6th Oct 2006

Council needs to cut back the weeds

The local Liberal Democrats have attacked Conservative-run Essex County Council for allowing weeds to take over some of the pavements around Chelmsford. Lib Dem Councillor Simon Jones (St Andrews ward) has written to the Essex Chronicle in response to an earlier letter.

Dear Sir/Madam

Further to the letter from Mrs Jean Driscoll regarding the failure of Essex County Council to weed our pavements (Your Views Sept 21), I can report some progress.

After I and local Lib Dem County Councillor Tom Smith-Hughes complained to the County Council, the officers admitted that the summer-time work had not been done properly.

Since then, the Contractors have been seen in some parts of Chelmsford, spraying weed-killer. Because the weeds had been allowed to grow so large, this has resulted in horrid, brown, dead vegetation on some pavements. The contractors should come back again and pull up these rotten remnants.

In other streets, for example, Scott's Walk where Mrs Driscoll lives, there appears to have been no action, and the weeds are continuing to proliferate.

It is time for those responsible, including the Conservative administration at County Hall, to get a grip on this totally unacceptable situation. The contractors must be made to properly implement the contract, assuming it has been properly drawn up, and the mess cleared up

Let us hope that next year our normally neat and tidy streets are returned to a state in which we can be proud.

Yours faithfully

Cllr Simon Jones