The new B&NES administration is busy getting down to work following the Lib-Dem sucesses of the local elections – where they increased their majority – and the summer break.
For new members of the inner cabinet its a chance to bed down in their roles.
One of them is a long-serving member. Cllr Tim Ball has represented Twerton since 1996 but now he’s back with a really tough job ahead. He’s been appointed Cabinet member for Neighbourhood Services.
Considering how much flack the council has been getting about the state of our World heritage city regarding litter and weeds, Cllr Ball has his hands full.
I went along to see him earlier today.
As a guide regularly showing our visitors around our City I am ashamed at the sight of gutters and pavements sprouting weeds. I guess this goes back to the decision not to use herbicides, which was only ever going to work if more people were employed to manually remove the weeds. This and the recent arrival of the ugly bike sheds reflects badly on our World Heritage status.
He said in the interview they don’t used weed killer.
I pull up the weeds outside my own house, a lead which is sometimes followed by others in the street. The increasing prevalence of weeds goes back further than the weedkiller ban – the gaps between visits of the weed removal team in our street have been getting longer and longer over at least the past decade. The Council’s current method of killing weeds is spraying hot water with a foam blanket on top of it, which requires no more labour than weedkiller.