Open Letter to Sheffield Council

I'm writing this open letter because your email system seems to discourage people from actually writing letters saying how they feel. I can't think why.

There was a time, about a year ago, when I requested a bin. So before we go any further, is there any progress on my bin application please? No? I knew money was tight but this seems a little ridiculous. I could have made one for each week out of paper mache by now.

While we are on the subject of money, I'm wondering about the upcoming road improvement situation.

I noted with joy last week that someone had been down the adjoining road to ours with a can of yellow spray paint and circled some clearly hazardous small holes.

Imagine my expectation, then, as I turned into our road and saw no yellow paint at all. Did your spray can run out perhaps? Can you not afford another one? It must be that for I can see no discernable difference in the state of our road compared to the other.

Of course there is the fact that we are a small cul de sac off the end of that road. But no, it can't be that you think our road is not as important as the other one? Not when the road usage is pretty much the same what with the large number of black cab drivers, quite a few residents (including elderly ones), and frankly the fact that it's an ideal place for every man and his dog to turn round (I'm not blaming the dogs by the way).

It reminds me a little of that time when you spent weeks removing the paving slabs all the way down the adjoining residential road and replacing it with lovely smooth tarmac. Then you got to the end of our cul de sac and simply gave up. I presume tarmac was limited that day too. Perhaps you should think about getting a different supplier?

Hold on, I'm being a bit unfair. I remember now that you pulled up a couple of slabs and put down a few blobs of tarmac which had broken up and fallen off by six months later. There is nothing like making an effort. And that's nothing like making an effort.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt though. I'm presuming you have every intention of fixing our road. You are simply planning to come back with another can of yellow paint when you can afford it. If you let me know how much it is I can enclose a cheque if it helps.

It is good to see, however, that you have some white paint available as evidenced by our new white lines at the end of little cul de sac road I live on. It does seem a bit odd that you have had someone paint them on when clearly you needed to come back and mend our road first, but perhaps logic isn't something applied to road mending.

All this aside, could I respectfully suggest that you encourage your line painter to go on a course or at the very least get his machine serviced. The lines are decidedly wobbly and there is a little bit of a splatter gun approach. But there is a recession on.

Anyway. I look forward to seeing some little yellow circles on our road very soon. And perhaps a new bin near the entrance to the school?

Yours sincerely
Middle aged and confused from Sheffield

Litter Bin continued

I received this today in response to my email/blog entry dated 1st October. I know you will have been waiting for it with baited breath as was I:

"Dear Ms Hilton

Thank you for your email dated 01 October 2012.

Your request for the litter bin to be placed on Abbeydale Road at the end of Bannerdale Road has been passed to our private sector contractor Amey for consideration.

During the first 2 to 3 years of the contract of the Highways PFI program, Our private sector contactor Amey will be providing 1000 additional litter bins. they will be discussing the location of these new litter bins with each Community Assembly area.

In future if you believe you have identified a location where the provision of an additional litter bin would be beneficial then you can suggest this location via our Online forms.

Kind regards

Customer Services

Tel: 0114 273 4567

Reply from me -  well just now actually:

"Dear new council contractor Streets Ahead

Thank you so much for your response which essentially says that my request for a litter bin near House School and a bus stop  is now on a list.

Imagine my delight at this news. I thought I was already on a list for bin consideration and now I must be on another one. This is terrific. Double the chances for success! 

You also mention the community assembly. Fortunately I already follow their social media activity so I will put my request through them too to triple the bin likelihood.

I am also thrilled to hear that there is now a specific online bin location request form. I shall bookmark this immediately. But I will miss our chatty email bin related dialogue.

Yours sincerely

Mrs Hilton

P.S. Any news from Nick yet?

Letter to the Council

To Whom This May Concern

I requested a litter bin at the Abbeydale Road end of Bannerdale Road back in April as you can see by my email below.

I received various responses to my letter including that my letter was on a list to be read, then on a list to be thought about and more recently that I am now on a specific bin waiting list. 

The last email I received explained that the priority criteria for getting a new bin includes whether the site is near a school (yep) and whether it is near a bus stop (yep, it is near one of those too). You can imagine how boosted I felt when the odds seemed so much in my favour. I celebrated my near win in all the usual ways like updating my status on Facebook and telling my mum. 

But sadly now things seem to have come to a standstill on the bin front and I'm feeling litter related angst.

I'm not naive. I imagine that now we are on the final list further bin related nagging will achieve very little.  But when you hit 36 years old complaining to the council is an inevitability so, sorry, but I was compelled to write another email.

I have gone one further this time and attached a photo I took today after school drop off. Unfortunately I didn't have a child with me at the time to look forlorn in the shot but I think you get the picture. 

I understand that the council has no money. I feel the council's pain. I don't have any either. If I did I would buy a bin myself.

I look forward to hearing from you in the hope that we have at least inched up the list a little, or that a surprise S7 bin fund has been discovered. Or even better that Nick Clegg or some wealthy Sheffield business man has decided to fund our bin personally. You never know your luck.

Yours sincerely

Katie Hilton