Is anyone else's council letting pavements go to pot?

[TheBinarySheep]

On the school run I walk through a few of the council estates, and this year I've really noticed how uncared for the pavements and verges are looking. There's weeds growing all over the pavements and kerbstones, I've honestly never seen it this bad.

The council are out fairly regularly cutting the grass, but beyond that they're not paying attention to anything else.

[wiggy001]

Pavements, roads, verges, litter, flytipping... my corner of Kent has never looked so bad.

[jhiker]

Same up here in Cheshire. The paths and roadside kerbs are really neglected and I’m sure it’s a false economy as the weeds are damaging the tarmac pathways which will need to be repaired before long.

[TheBinarySheep]

jhiker said:

Same up here in Cheshire. The paths and roadside kerbs are really neglected and I m sure it s a false economy as the weeds are damaging the tarmac pathways which will need to be repaired before long.

That's ok though, they'll just put the council tax up next year to cover it.

[otolith]

It's a contentious issue - a lot of councils have stopped using weedkiller.

Cornwall looking at resuming:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c393w292mewo

Resulting petition:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjd8vyzjgjko

[jmn]

Same here in Devon.
Leaves are not collected either which results in regular blockages of gulleys necessitating the attendance of a drain clearing crew.

[fido]

We had 'No Mow May' last year to save money and the pavements are now covered in weeds. All the extra weeding would have wiped out any savings!

[mgtony]

It's all to save the bees apparently.

[otolith]

"No Mow May" is meant to be about wildlife. Though obviously councils are onto any excuse not to spend money like a tramp on hot chips.

[Chipstick]

Here in Somerset we used to see a roadsweeper around the residential areas (admitidly they spent more time going around parked cars than against pavements) and a guy on a small tractor thing spraying the weeds. Not seen either this year.

The verge near me was trimmed for the first time this year a week or so ago after I reported it - possibly a coincidence. Something else I’ve noticed is whereas they used to go around as a gang of two - one on the ride on mower and the other stimming the edges and blowing, for the last year or so I’ve noticed they are a single crew and no longer appear to strim any edges.

I ran a hoe along the kerb outside my house recently to clear any weeds and swept up. Many people don’t even appear to notice weeds outside their door let alone go to any effort outside the house to make the place a little nicer.

[wiggy001]

Road sweepers are the stuff of legend round here. I’ve had 3 nails/screws in tyres this year and the guy in the garage has said most of his tyre work is punctures rather than low tread.

So they spend less on keeping the roads clean and gain more in VAT on tyres. What a racket!