Minding my own business, cycling down Northdown Road, I noticed a big gap, which previously had been boarded up, as some of you will recall, from the big fire, back in May 2009.
Closer inspection shows, what I feel most, would agree, a poor attempt to fence the site off, having rung the council, I understand that they are on the case as it were, but I understand that the owners of the site, are a bit reluctant to secure the site properly.
I feel that given the ease, with which you could push aside the fencing (not that it appears secure), there is a real danger of a child, teenager or passing drunk could find themselves falling 3 metres or more.
It looks to me as if the owners, are not taking reasonable steps to secure the site. I appreciate that the council are chasing up the owner to get them take responsibility.
Still if you own the site, please feel free to explain the methodology of having a few plastic barriers as a means of securing the site.
I shall email my local representatives and get them on the case.
Couldn't agree more Tony. Whole issue has shown the difference in attitude towards Cliftonville West & anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteYou will remember it took us weeks to get a walkway around the original hoardings when it should have been done as a matter of course (I remember seeing you there a year ago).
For the last 2 weeks we ward councillors have been warning of the precarious state of the hoarding & for the last week I have been explaining (daily) to TDC that a piece of wood with nails in it was hanging over shoppers heads.
On Saturday at 8am I reported the hoarding had collapsed onto the path & at 1pm the same day KCC attended and presumably left it as you describe.
None of this would happen in Birchington or Broadstairs & this is yet another example of the differeing standards applied to Cliftonville.
Previous comment was not anonymous - it was me but for some reason name didn't show.
ReplyDeleteWhere does Cllr. Hart get this notion that somehow Cliftonville is treated differently to Broadstairs. We too have had our horror stories from time to time, not least a few years back, deciding to re-landscape the sea front gardens just before the Easter Bank holiday weekend which were then like a building site for weeks into the summer.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, isn't this gentlemen actually on the council? As part of it he cannot always blame the current majority. I don't seem to recall things being much different when his party were in charge nor that they took much notice of the anti-Westwood Cross protesters at the time. Did not some of us then forsee the catastrophic effect it would have on our High Streets.
Maybe, if our elected representatives, like Clive Hart, spent a bit more time working together for the common good and listening, rather than just trying to score political points, we might get somewhere. Or is that just a bit too obvious?
In the mean time what is going to happen in Northdown road The owners have a responsibility to protect the public if they wont do it. arrange a compulsory purchase and put flats on it and go back into council hoses where to my mind a council should be. We have chronic housing shortages ans what does the council do pay others rather than build some more .
ReplyDeleteDon 2 thumbs up, the council I am sure, do have rights and they can charge for the erection of safety barriers, to the owners of site.
ReplyDeleteto be honest, I am not knowledgeable by any means, but I remember a program called life of Grime, or something and the old guy ended up having his house sold due to the fact the council had been forced to step in and clean up his home so many times.
Tony, again, I shivered to think what my youngsters would make of a gap in railings, and they are like buttered eels! they are off in a flash! and not against distracting Mum, while the other is off.
Surely though this site has an insurance company? they are responsible for security of a site, after an incident? (like my Brother's house when it set fire to, I complained it wasn't secure,(he was in Iraq in service) and someone nicked the copper pipes,the insurance company payed up for both incidences and made sure it was secure! so unless they (insurance) investigated and figure foul play? it their responsibility. if they did think foul play even more reason to claim back the costs?