A councillor is calling on residents to clean up their front gardens, saying they’re a bloomin’ mess.Wha...?
Martin Goss, Colchester councillor for Mile End ward, has been so incensed by the untamed flora in Hakewill Way that he has posted letters to residents telling them they are letting their neighbours down.Oh, wouldn't you love to get one of those letters? I know I would.
The green-fingered Lib Dem (Ed: *rolls eyes*) said the problem seemed to be at rented houses.And that's council business how, exactly?
He said: “I am getting more complaints about people at private rented accommodation not maintaining their gardens.
“There are a number of properties I have had to write to reminding them to keep their front gardens in order.
“They are letting them become wildly overgrown.”
He said some tenants had cut back their front gardens since he sent the letters, but added: “Some haven’t bothered and I shouldn’t have to tell them to do it.What do you want, a cookie?
“It is beyond the call of duty as a councillor, but I also have to be innovative.”
People living in the area said it was a thorny issue. Marina deSmith, a homeowner in nearby Bardsley Close, said: “It lowers the tone when a garden is knee-deep in weeds, it doesn’t look very nice.Oh, boo hoo! Is that the worst thing you have to complain about?
“Up the road from here you have got one house that has a front garden full of flowers and next door, slap bang next to it, is full of weeds.”
But another homeowner in Hutley Drive said Mr Goss should mind his own business. They said: “If someone has got a battered old car sitting in their garden and it is an eyesore, fair enough.Quite!
“I have got a few nettles, but it is not the end of the world and it is not going to devalue the house. Mr Goss has got no right telling people what they can and can’t do with their garden. There isn’t a garden on the estate that is absolutely ridiculous.”
"Weed" is just a perjorative term for an indigenous plant which doesn't need any help from us.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it "green" to respect biodiversity, and leave them alone?
We expect the Amazonions to leave their trees alone, and the Indians to tolerate tigers ambling through their village. Can't we call off this vendetta against our exuberant nettles?
To Councillor Goss - rearrange the following words into a well-known phrase or saying: "off fuck".
ReplyDeleteA piss stained old mattress was the garden ornament of choice in the area where I used to stay, along with a chained up half starved canine.
ReplyDeleteAnd I nearly forgot the obligatory ten foot round trampoline.
ReplyDeleteOh, wouldn't you love to get one of those letters? I know I would.
ReplyDeleteNot half...
Our tenant didn't exactly look after the garden. When she took the house over, the garden was one of the things that most attracted her. Unfortunately, she seemed to be of the mindset that it would manage itself. Well, yes, it did. it's taken several months to unmanage it from the somewhat wild state that nature had imposed.
And who, pray, footed the bill for this anti-weed crusade? Did the the insufferable bastard of a councillor dig into his own pockets? Or was this fit of hubris subsidised by the poor bloody council tax payers?
ReplyDeleteEnquiring minds want to know...
RantinRab,
ReplyDeleteFord Cortinas on bricks were very fashionable where I came from.
I too admire gormless bastards too lazy to tidy their own gardens.
ReplyDeleteThey make such lovely neighbours.
"Isn't it "green" to respect biodiversity, and leave them alone?"
ReplyDeleteHeh!
"Unfortunately, she seemed to be of the mindset that it would manage itself."
:( Still, I'm sure the cats enjoyed the hunting for a time!
I can't be bothered to google which of our native endangered (ish) butterfly speechies nettles are essential for, but the few that have decidied to grow in the middle of one of our rose bushes have been left alone because I did come across it at some point in the spring.
ReplyDelete"Green", hah! Statist git (like most Lib-Dems.) Now, if it was in the lease and the owner wanted to complain, that's a different matter.
I just tried to Google Councillor Goss's address... can't quite locate it on Street View but he appears to live on one of those new build micro-estates. You know the type; where there's a little foot-wide strip between the property and the footpath containing a single mini conifer and an evergreen scrub that would take at least 150 years to double its size.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it just be karma if someone to walk down his way on a windy night with some nettle seeds in a flimsy packet? ;-)
People living in the area said it was a thorny issue.
ReplyDeletehahahahahahaha!
even councillors are allowed opions.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you like living in an unkempt manner but what does that say about you?