I've just written to Colas the contractors that are rebuilding our cobbled street:
"Your firm has just started work on our main street in Ulverston - one I take an intense interest in. I have be reporting on the progress made on this particular topic - the maintenance of our cobbled street - for five years now.
We look forward to some excellent work - a thing we didn't get from Amey previously - see Youtube - now it's your turn.
We're looking forward to recommending you in future - if you deserve it. See - http://geoffdellow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/work-on-cobbles-down-market-street.html and http://youtu.be/eh4l55AQs7A
We'll be publishing regular updates as the work progresses.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Dr Geoff Dellow"
7 comments:
Well they had buggered off at 3pm today and won't be back till Monday. It really isn't good enough - they should be working weekends to get the job done.
Great to have your comment - I'm sure the management will be keeping and eye on this blog.
My reaction is that 3pm on Friday is fair enough if they've worked hard all week.
Getting them to work weekends is a bit much unless it's a different work crew- aren't they entitled to a break?- this would put the cost up which we wouldn't like.
The more of us that talk to them and encourage when they are working will work wonders I think.
A road closure in the centre of any town should be kept to a minimum. Weekend working wouLd have saved a whole week in this case and the crew would probably jump at the chance of overtime. They probably had the choice of staying in digs or paid travelling time and chose the latter.
I agree entirely, however the Highways Department will feel constrained to pay out the least amount possible.
If our town had direct control of the budget then they could make the decision to pay more for the benefit of the town.
If we had hard working County Councillors that thought things through they could act more for the benefit of the town in this way. Sadly we don't have either politicians or local government officials who act in the best interest of the community. Sadly again we have an electorate that blindly votes for a party rather than for individuals that think and work hard.
At the moment we have one true exception - Jane Harris who would most likely share your view and make sure it actually happened. The worse thing to happen for this town would be if Jane became frustrated and decided to give up (it's happened before when David Foot, an excellent, independent thinking SLDC district councillor decided to quit). Instead like minded people need to get off their backside and join her and become thinking politicians instead of standing by and stating it's someone else's job. John Lawrence ex Glaxo, ex Kimberley-Clarke managers, how about it? Declare early that you will stand for County Council this next year and well work our socks off to get you elected. Then we have a hope of The Town becoming a force to be reckoned with.
I keep advocating a unitary authority for the original Furness and Cartmel peninsulas - keep it local. There are at least 2 obstacles here (more but I wont go into them unless asked)
1. The spineless Ulverston councillors profess distrust of Kendal and cumbria but when they get chance to do things differently they stick with the devils they know, afraid of that "leap in the dark."
2. The thought of Ulverston joining in with, inter alia, Barrow revolts many of the snobs here. They'd rather stick pins in their eyeballs. Ulverston is special etc etc etc. They need to get over themselves and see reality. Happy to expand if asked!
Yes Les - expand away.
How do we join up with Barrow now?
In local government terms - we don't! Ulverston is full of people who are happy to work in Barrow, shop there etc but shun the place as being a bit below us here.
But, my point is that Furness & Cartmel probably has a population of over 100,000, easily viable as an "independent" unitary authority when you bear in mind that Rutland, population 30 odd thousand has been unitary for some years now.
Presently our rates money disappears to Carlisle or Kendal where mosdt decisions affecting us are also made. WHY? A unitary council based on Barrow + the old North Lonsdale RDC area would keep major decisions truly LOCAL, no more officials from 80 odd miles away making decisions for us then sloping off back to Carlisle (or Kendal)safe from any fall out or repercussions.
Cumbria and LOCAL government is a huge contradiction in terms! So too is the fact that, with SLDC we are in the same local government area as traditionally Yorkshire towns - Sedbergh, Dent etc. How is that LOCAL!?
You may guess that I have, even after all these yrears, no affinity whatsoever with cumbria. It was imposed upon us all in 1974, at the last local government review Barrow and SLDC areas voted to opt out, guess what - we were ignored! Time for a change I think, but gutless councillors will oppose it, they have no insight, no vision.
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