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!

[POIDH]

I do not have a problem with grass etc growing up pavement cracks, and I welcome our more nature-friendly verges.

I do think we have had 100 years in the UK of expecting pristine tarmac and paved areas, and 60 years of roadside verges looking like golf courses.

It saves money, cools the area, reduces flooding, slows wind, benefits wildlife, brings us closer to all sorts of beneficial organisms, and generally looks better.

But it is a massive reset of expectations.

This of course is NOT letting places go to wrack and ruin through leaving litter, letting pavements disintegrate and walls fall over.

[Countdown]

Most of the pavements near me have been wrecked by people parking cars on them.

Still probably the Council's fault though.

[Craikeybaby]

Looking at the breakdown of our council tax spend, the vast majority goes on "social care", with a fraction left for everything else.

I live on a "nicer" 1980's estate, and have the odd weed growing through the pavement, but I just pull them out myself in front of my house when I take the garden bin out. It is less effort than trying to get the council to do anything.

[mikey_b]

Our council did a big programme of works two or three years ago to resurface our pavements. Knocked down high spots, filled low spots, and applied lots of gaffer tape to the kerbstones. Then, they swept a tarmac slurry over the whole lot (literally brushing it about with brooms), let it cool down and set and removed all the tape. In the space of about a week they did the whole estate and all the pavements looked brand new. As an extra brucey bonus, they then realigned a lot of the dropped kerbs to take account of how people had reconfigured driveways for extension works etc - so I got a dropped kerb extension to double-width completely free. Am well aware that I was very fortunate!

[bigpriest]

Fortunately we have the original flagstones so very little cracking. A few weeds inbetween but residents keep them tidy. I've just had a tree planted outside my house to ps off the pavement parkers.

[julianm]

Astonished by the vision today of two contractor blokes replacing fencing alongside a pavement & cycle path.
I was smashed to pieces over 2 years ago when a police pursuit led to a bit of a mistake by the errant driver.
I'm assuming the council have been saving up.

[biggiles]

otolith said:

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

Pesticide Action Network claim 50 councils (of perhaps 400) are pesticide free (and they include glyphosate in this). Source: https://www.pan-uk.org/phasing-out-urban-pesticide... (I'd never heard of them before today, let's assume they are an honest bunch).

Much as I like the "concept", most people with a few acres, or some gravel, or some tracks (or a farm) will have glyphosate around, as it's so practical. I'm not sure a council can really avoid glyphosate/herbicides, until some new tech comes in?

[otolith]

The weeds on my hard landscaping are going to get some of the glyphosate 360 I have in the shed when I get round to it, but some people are really obsessed with how evil they think it is.

[richhead]

Countdown said:

Most of the pavements near me have been wrecked by people parking cars on them.

Still probably the Council's fault though.

This is really bad round me, most pavements are made of patio type concrete slabs, and they cant take a car parked on them, all double yellow lines, so no parking, yet see people parked on them all the time. Mainly deliverro type drivers, i blame the lazy idiots who cant be bothered to go and get their own takeaway, and im right in a city centre
You really have to watch your feet when walking on them.