A Word In Your Ear - May 4, 2017

I was interested to see the Gazette's special report last week about Blackpool '˜cutting back' on services to grassed areas. Fortunately, Stanley Park still looks great thanks to its Friends group, though it isn't marketed nearly enough.
Roy EdmondsRoy Edmonds
Roy Edmonds

I’ve been in email correspondence with the council’s Customer First team since March 13 over ‘gardening’ that was carried out - unfortunately - on highway landscaping near us. However, even after nine emails, I haven’t received an explanation.

It was back in March we noted with dismay a formerly attractive traffic island, where pedestrians cross Whitegate Drive from Preston New Road, had been severely cut back.

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We’d often admired the red-flowering, easily maintained bushes there, that were very mature and attracted birds and other wildlife. To us and other motorists waiting at busy Oxford Square traffic lights, it was a welcome change from the usual concrete.

Now its blooming bushes have been razed back to root stumps and we’re left to look at a jumble of large stones with weeds sprouting between them. Hopes of at least a few newly planted rockery flowers haven’t materialised – and why? Well, no one I know of found visibility a hazard there; also other similar islands have been left untouched . . . so this savagery remains a mystery.

Most people would appreciate more greenery around our streets, as we see in nearby Fylde and Wyre. Look at how popular ‘leafy’ Lytham is!

Yet when South Shore café-bar and restaurant owner Danielle, of Montagues on Highfield Road, pressed for some saplings and planters there she was told it would be too costly and difficult to maintain. Young Danielle did, however, get trees planted down the South Shore road near her home, so well done her!

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Blackpool is rightly famous for ‘fresh air and fun’. Come on council, let’s dig up some civic pride and brighten our open spaces!

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