My favourite Top Tory and I have been having a bit of a January ding-dong today about the issue I’ve seen a lot of you complaining about, namely the mass dumping of Christmas trees in the streets which seems to have affected almost everywhere in the Bush for around a week or more.
One reader, who drives the 148 bus for a living, even remarked that he’d had to stop the bus repeatedly to drag trees out of the way on the Goldhawk Road. Apart from causing traffic hazards as they roll into the roads from my point of view it’s just people being pretty lazy.
But Cllr Greg Smith, who is a contender for the leadershipof H&F Council in the wake of Council Leader Stephen Greenhalgh’sresignation, took umbrage – and in fairness to him he has a perfectly valid point of view as well. Which is that the Council’s own Xmas tree pick-up service, which is presumably why so many trees are left in the streets, is a welcome service that is appreciated by local people.
To be honest, in the league of major issues, this is QPR-like near the bottom of the table, but I thought it was worth playing Devil’s Advocate for a bit and you can see the exchanges above left. At one point, Cllr Smith, got a bit snappy and said he’d remember my “feedback” next year as he implied darkly that the service may be withdrawn as a result. Two things to say about that – 1) I’m just some bloke with a blog so I hardly think that would be fair on everyone else and 2) I really do think that if people can’t take a bit of responsibility and dispose of their trees themselves is it really something that local taxpayers should be funding – instead of, say, other services for children?
Open question – and one to mull over as you finish off those mince pies. Happy New Year!
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| courtesy of Jonathan Werran |
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