Tag: Walsall Council

#365daysofbiking A thoroughly good job

March 2nd – I had to be at an appointment in Brownhills in the morning and left for work in bright sunlight. Passing down cycle route 5 from Engine Lane to the old cement works bridge, I noticed the folk from Back the Track had done an excellent job of edging and cleaning the trail, making it much nicer to ride.

I’m told the council will now maintain this properly and the volunteers will not have to – as it should have been when first laid in 1998.

This is a fine job on a very under appreciated asset to our town.

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#365daysofbiking A tale of two trees

December 10th – Christmas trees in Walsall Borough have to be externally funded and the council won’t pay for them. In the district centres where they are present, someone has either usually been generous individually (like the three councillors who personally pay for Walsall Wood’s tree) or the public have come together to pay for them.

Setting an early example in the public subscription stakes has always been Rushall, whose community work hard every year to raise the money required to pay for a tree to be erected on the square outside the ‘Village Hub’ – the old library – and jolly festive it looks too.

Contrast that with the pitiful string of lights thrown on a random tree every year on the public open space in Shelfield, on the corner of Four Crosses Road and Lichfield Road.

I really don’t know why they bother there, I really don’t.

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January 15th – Walsall Wood’s winter lido is again filling up courtesy of the inclement weather.

Once a bowling green, and passed to Walsall Council after being created for the local miners to enjoy, the old Oak Park – beside the leisure centre – continues to decay, unloved.

This is little short of a crime. Every time I see it it makes me angry – very angry indeed.

November 21st – After rain in the night, I rode past the old bowling green at Oak Park on my way to work, sadly noting that it was starting to flood once more for winter. If we have much more rain, in a week or two, this will again be a pond.

There had been groundworks here in the Summer, and I hoped it was to fix the blocked land drain causing the problem; but no such luck. 

It seems this forgotten, forlorn park – created by, and for the miners of Walsall Wood to enjoy in perpetuity as a break from the darkness – is to be forever neglected by a council that don’t understand or value it’s significance.

It makes me angry. Very angry indeed.

June 2nd – Coming home on a pleasant summer afternoon, I came around  the new pond then cut over Clayhanger Common. I don’t normally go that way, but it’s beautifully verdant at the moment, so it’s worth putting up with the anti-vehicle gates that are so irritating here. In the three decades since it was created, this place has matured beautifully, and it’s a real asset for the local area, and a testament to a period when local authorities were allowed space to take on large environmental projects – a period that has sadly now passed.

It does suffer a degree of antisocial behaviour, but is generally peaceful and well looked after. I know deer like to come around here, and was hoping to spot some but sadly, they were elsewhere today…

November 30th – Brownhills has been spoiled rotten this year by our municipal overlords at Walsall Council – they’ve brought us new Christmas lights. Likened to mint Cornettos, they seem to show holly sprigs and stars, or maybe snowfall. They complement the tree we no longer get beautifully.

Can we have another lump of coal for the fire, Mr. Bird?

November 12th – I had something important to do in the morning, had had planned to take the rest of the day of, but I got called in to work. In Walsall Wood on my errand, I noted with sadness the seasonal lake is filling up at the original Oak Park. This was once a bowling green.

It would bring tears to a glass eye. This water will stay here until spring, and nobody at the council – whose responsibility this virtually abandoned public park is – seems to give a toss.

October 2nd – I know I keep banging on about this, but it’s on my mind and I’m seething about it.

This is the original Oak Park in Walsall Wood, on the south east side of the 1970s leisure centre bearing the same name. This park was for decades – and in my living memory – a neat little park with flowerbeds, tennis courts, public bowling green and paved paths. I think there was even a putting green. It stands on land held in charitable trust to be used for the enjoyment of the local residents, created to give miners and their families a lovely open space to take the air and enjoy the greenery.

On this basis, the popular and well-used leisure centre overlooking it was built, and the faithful flock to nearby Walsall Wood FC on match days. Sadly, Walsall Council who are charged with the upkeep of the park have let it slide into decay and ruin.

The flowerbeds are overgrown, the public bowling green floods every winter. Tennis courts locked out of use, the surfaces being reclaimed by weeds. The one manicured trees are overgrown. Walsall Council doesn’t care for this once lovely amenity and would rather we all forget it exists.

To me, this is sticking two fingers up to the memory of those for whom it was created. 

Shame on these who would neglect our civic heritage.

May 1st – There are some things that Walsall Council does really well, and one of those things is generally their grass cutting and greenspace management. However, something has gone horribly wrong. I was heartbroken this morning to see that the top grass cutting operative delegated the task of mowing the verges in Shelfield along the A461 Lichfield Road has mown off all the daffodils. As many gardeners will know, after flowering, daffs absorb nutrients back out of the foliage to develop the bloom within the bulb for next year. Cutting off the tops will prevent that happening, and next year’s plants will grow blind – without blooms. Cheers, mate, I really owe you one. Not.

Those flowers are usually beautiful, and a welcome splash of spring colour in a drab urban landscape. Now, they’ve been wrecked for next year. What an idiot.