West Bletchley - The Litter Capital of England

THANKS to all who read yesterday's entry.  Don't forget my full diary can be read at www.patrioticpensioner.com

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My local parish council has been busy putting small flower gardens about its kingdom.  Here is the one it has set out at the top of the road where I live.

What do you think ?

It does not exactly resemble the one the council boasts on its website !

It is probably all this spendthrift council can afford.

There are twenty-eight elected council members in West Bletchley Parish Council, I tried to find out how many residents they represent but have not been able to.  

How many members of staff do you think the council needs to employ in order to service these democratically elected members ?

Two ? Three ? Five ?  

Wait for it.................................. West Bletchley Parish Council has TEN staff members sitting at desks in its office !  Is it any wonder there is no money left to go down to the local garden centre and buy a few bedding plants for the extravaganza it has at the top of my road.

From the council's office a resident can collect bags in which to put items for recycling which can be collected by the borough council in its weekly rubbish collection. I doubt there are enough recycling bags in the entire parish council's large office to pick up all of the litter thrown on the ground.

I hasten to point out it is not the parish council, neither its twenty-eight council members not its over staffed office of ten persons who have thrown the litter about the streets but those who live there.  One could be forgiven for thinking that either just one of those twenty-eight elected members or one of the ten office wallers may have noticed the appalling litter problem.

When Milton Keynes was in its infancy I wrote a piece which the local paper picked up and published. In those days, when it rained, construction made the roads and pavements rivers of mud. Cars were always dirty and the dry cleaners did a booming trade as people had their trousers splattered with mud.

In my newspaper article I asked readers if they remembered the song DIRTY OLD TOWN then suggested it could be rewritten as DIRTY NEW CITY. Perhaps in 2017 a song writer could put together something under the title of SCRUFFY WEST BLETCHLEY.

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But it isn't just the litter and the unwanted weed gardens growing through the pavements. Great efforts are being made to allow moss, lichen and every other form of rubbish to grow on the street signs presumably so weed gardens can eventually be planted there as well !

It can not be that the council does not have any money, it has one of the highest parish council demands in the borough, it can employ ten people to sit behind desks and do what ?

It's logo claims: QUALITY - look at these pictures and judge for yourself. ACTION - action does not mean having ten people sitting behind desks, it means getting out into the

community and fixing the problems. SUPPORT - yes some of the plants in the weed gardens are growing so tall then need sticks and string to support them.

Have I got it wrong ?  Is CASH COW an anagram of COUNCIL TAX PAYER ?

Allow me to make a suggestion to West Bletchley Council.

Organise one afternoon a month where volunteers go out and pick up all this rubbish. STOP MAKING WEST BLETCHLEY THE LITTER CAPITAL OF ENGLAND. I will volunteer PROVIDING your ten salaried staff members also volunteer. Or is the council proud of its litter problem ? If not then let's see some ACTION !  While the team of volunteers is out there there can be buckets of soapy water to clean the disgusting street signs West Bletchley also appears to be proud of.  I'll bring my camera to take

photographs of all the cars parked on the pavements and grass verges destroying the environment. I will then publish them all - INCLUDING NUMBER PLATES, to name and shame their owners.

Last week I told our MP I was proud he was our member of parliament, I a proud of the mayor and mayoress our town has, I said so in an earlier diary entry. I am, however, ASHAMED that I am obliged to live in an area overseen by West Bletchley Council.

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