Tag: Walsall Council

April 29th – Late evening, then rain ceased and the skies brightened, so I ventured out. In a damp, oddly-idiot strewn ride down the High Street, I realised that, due to relatively light traffic, I was recording the water features by Knaves Court and Morris Miner, and a good few of the serious potholes in-between – some of which have been there so long that they’ve evolved their own weather systems. It’d be really, really nice if we could get some of this stuff fixed for a change.

Apologies for the singing disc brake: I’m bedding in new pads.

February 14th – This is the stray horse problem Walsall Council claims it hasn’t got. To be fair, horses are cheap to acquire right now; market prices have never been lower, and any bit of common land around the Goscote Valley has a variety of nags tethered or just wandering free. These three forlorn animals – not one with access to water – were tethered within a short section of the cycle route running through the area. In total, there must have been about 15 of these unfortunate beasts, yet the council bafflingly announced recently that we don’t have a problem with this sort of thing. The council can’t actually do much. People won’t claim the horses if taken away, and the sanctuaries are, by and large, full. It’s a thorny, and worsening, issue.

January 29th – On the kissing gate at the entrance to the new pond at Clayhanger, I spotted this notice. Thought I’d feature it here, as anyone making such an effort to get the community together in any activity deserves a little support. I wish Garry and Jackie all the best in their venture.

I noticed also that the kissing gate had recently been expertly rebuilt by (I assume) the countryside and estates guys at Walsall Council. I also observed that the common itself was again spotless, and it appears that some coppicing is in progress. People have been working hard on the greenspace locally for a while now – there are refurbished boardwalks over on Brownhills Common and some brush cutting and thinning there, too. 

Thanks, folks, your work is much appreciated.

July 22nd – How to get rid of a listed building. These masons are carefully removing examples of significant stonework from the Mellish Road Methodist Church, which was sadly damaged during the operation to fill limestone caverns under the Butts area of North Walsall 22 years ago. Never well built, it suffered from cheap, ambitious building techniques, common to many such churches. Having taken the substantial compensation, the original owners sold the church on to developers, whose attempts to do anything with the site were roundly rebuffed by he planning committees for 20 years. Finally, after vandalism, decay and a visit from the municipal arsonists, the church is being demolished, clearing the way for the owners to build whatever they want.

Oddly, Walsall Council paints this as some kind of triumph, when in reality it’s a sickening, depressing example of how commercial interests outflank attempts at development control. But it’s more than that – a decade ago, an application was made to turn the church into a community centre, which was declined, too. Had that been approved, these men wouldn’t be taking apart this sad, decaying building now.

June 12th – Thought I was a fair weather cyclist? ‘Fraid not. Going stir-crazy late afternoon, dying to get out. Pulled on the waterproofs and went for a quick spin in the rain. Gliding up through a deserted Holland Park, I noticed the odd bars welded across the tops of the railngs around the perimenter, and wracked my mind to work out why this had been done. Then I remembered.

Several years ago, a red deer hind had been found dead, implaled on railings here that she failed to jump. The welded bars remove that risk for our cervine residents. Unusually thoughtful actions by the council, there…