A FIDO machine bought by the council two years ago to clean up dog mess from the streets of North East Lincolnshire is "as much use as a dead dog", according to a Cabinet member.Oh, for….
Alex Wallace, the council's portfolio holder for environment, said the machine, which cost the authority about £18,000, could not be used down side streets or in Grimsby town centre.
Still, could have been worse!
He said that although the council had planned to spend £60,000 on three of the machines, the authority had bought only one and had no plans to purchase the remaining two.A very welcome attack of conscience?
But maybe questions should be asked why they ever bought the first one:
The spokesman said the original Fido machine is still being used at least once a week in the borough.So, basically, on no pavement whatsoever? I mean, can anyone think of a pavement that doesn’t have acres of clutter to negotiate, or where no people ever walk..?
The machine could not be used on pavements where litter bins, lampposts, or parked cars caused an obstruction, or on the pedestrianised part of Victoria Street, in Grimsby, because of the high volume of people.
5 comments:
Maybe they should have thought to get the type of machine they use in my local city, it's a motorbike with a large vacuum cleaner tank on the back. It goes anywhere a motorbike can and cleans and disinfects as necessary.
The other thing is that most shopkeepers wash down and clean up the pavement in front of their shops first thing in the morning 6-30 ish.
had no plans to purchase the remaining two
Code for we've already spent it on some other harebrained scheme?
The little truck FIDO is more for large areas such as playing fields, verges etc. It is essentially a milk-float with a whacking great vacuum cleaner on the back operated via a huge thick elephant-trunk suction pipe.
Ideally it looks like you need two operators - one to drive slowly, the other to operate the trunk, but you could do it by nipping back in to the cab and moving off every few yards.
However, in design terms there's a crucial weakness; you are vacuuming BEHIND where the truck has already been whereas ideally, you need to vacuum ahead of it. I suppose you could drive in reverse for miles on end, but it's not ideal.
It isn't a very good design for a vacuum cleaner and offers no advantage over the scarab trucks which sweep and vacuum kerbs. I've seen those drive up shallow ledges and go right up to garden walls, providing the lamp posts etc don't get in the way.
The modified bikes, scooters and barrow-type vacuum cleaners seem to work better on streets. At least, the ones I've seen working seem to do a reasonable job with the operator slowly wheeling the noo-noo along.
They don't catch many grannies or toy poodles.
Ivan, are you in Paris, because that's what they use?
"The other thing is that most shopkeepers wash down and clean up the pavement in front of their shops first thing in the morning 6-30 ish."
Oh, not here! 'Me taxes pay for it, innit?'
"Code for we've already spent it on some other harebrained scheme?"
I wouldn't be at all suprised.
"The little truck FIDO is more for large areas such as playing fields, verges etc."
It does seem so utterly unsuitable for the job I'd really like to see what sort of spec they had when they bought it.
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