Lib Dem cleanup crew spruces up North Park Avenue

Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of walking all over Earlham, delivering our regular Focus newsletter and canvassing local people on the issues. While Earlham is a lovely place to live, it seems the area appears to get less maintenance than it used to. Grass is cut at irregular intervals, paths or roads allowed to enter disrepair. Verges being chewed by inconsiderate parking has long been an issue, especially at hotspots near George Borrow Rd and West Earlham Junior.

In some cases there is a council authority to blame, and where possible I have tried to take up casework to get the truth on who should be doing what, when. But in the meantime, I think there is something to be said for people power: coming together to put right what has been neglected and give Earlham the TLC it deserves. That’s why I’ve started the clean-up crew. Our group of volunteers started on North Park Ave in September, weeding a poorly maintained path.

See our social media video detailing what we got up to:

Transcript

0:01
Hello James, what are we up to today?

0:03
Oh hello, we're here on North Park Avenue with our volunteer clean up crew.

0:08
Just doing a little bit of wedding.

0:10
Couple of reasons for that:

0:11
Firstly, the path could do with a little bit of TLC. It does look a little bit worse for wear, and I think people ought to have reason to be proud of where they live.

0:21
So what better thing to do on a nice sunny Saturday morning than come along, and put in some elbow grease for the community?

0:29
But the second reason; as winter approaches, as things get colder; wetter; icier; weeds like these can prove a slipping hazard for people who are harder of balance, or older, or just more vulnerable in general.

0:49
And indeed, that is exactly what happened two years ago when we got a report of someone who had a nasty fall on this path when it had similarly been left without maintenance for a long period of time.

1:02
So we came along with a group of volunteers, cleaned it up, and for a while the council was maintaining it a little bit better.

1:09
That seems to have fallen out a little bit again. So we're coming along. Hopefully second time is the charm.

1:14
And if you know of somewhere that could do with a little bit of maintenance, whether from the councils or from us, let us know.

1:24
And if you've got some spare time to help us out and join our group of volunteers, we'd love to hear from you as well.