rjb wrote: ↑12 Aug 2024, 11:09am
It's the thin end of the wedge so cash strapped councils can make workers redundant. If they managed their finances prudently they could fund the services needed.
What tosh, it isn't about prudence it's about how their finances have been restricted by central government for the last thirty years.
Whether we should step in to cover that gap is a personal choice, I sometimes sweep glass off the local cycle paths I use every day, particularly if I can do so before it's spread. But that's a matter of self-interest and I know if I rang the council they'd have it cleaned up withing 24hrs.
Funny old thing this sign-cleaning, because it can go in multiple directions, from stepping in to do something that blindingly obviously ought be be done by the relevant authority and they’ve neglected, through grey areas where the authority probably ought to do it yearly but has cheese-pared under budget pressure, and now does it two-yearly, right out to the more madly obsessive end of “best kept village” stuff, where someone is out there with a tin of pledge, buffing-up the village name sign at 0600 every morning.
My gut feel is that if it’s part of a ‘pride in the locality’ thing, where there’s significant participation in keeping a place decent, whether that be in a city, town, or village, then probably a good thing. Where it’s the Highway Agency frankly neglecting infrastructure on a trunk road, a bad thing. Then things in between, which are in between.
The worst one locally was (I think it’s fallen down now!) a big county boundary sign, on a very major road. The boundary was re-drawn, and the sign was simply left to rot by the authority whose boundary was no longer there. It was an eyesore for years, and a really bad advert for the county concerned (Buckinghamshire).
PH wrote: ↑14 Aug 2024, 2:37pm
I thought this thread might be about Alfie Odd Job, who's vids on youtube always amuse me https://www.youtube.com/@alfieoddjob
Just watched a couple of his videos,quite a funny lad
-----------------------------------------------------------
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
