Jaine Lunn wrote to Brent Council along the following lines:
The state of Edward VII Park ('King Eddies' to locals) is no longer a joke.
It is evident it is only going to get worse now the summer has kicked in. The level of anti-social behaviour is off the scale. We need some serious intervention now. Signs informing users of the by-laws in the park, no BBQ's, no fires, Single men exercising in the children's playground make families uneasy. Scooters, cars, and ice-cream vans driving around like it's normal. Drug dealing and drinking. We all have photographic evidence. Everyone knows why our only green open space municipal park is like this: lack of enforcement and shit maintenance by Veolia. Whoever signed the contract should be fired.
How dare the council have such contempt for residents who pay for public services via their Council Tax.
No doubt King Edward V11 and his wife Queen Alexander must be turning in the graves, after all this was bought by the council back in 1913 for approx £8,000 to compensate the residents for the loss of green space in Wembley NoPark when they commenced development for the Stadium and subsequent Empire Exhibition. The fact that Brent Council signed an agreement to protect the park with "Fields in Trust in 2012 as the plaque on Collins Lodge states and has won "Borough of Culture for 2020" makes a mockery of the whole thing unless you stop this now. I will make it my personal mission to embarrass the Council every opportunity I can find if this is not resolved asap.
Might I also add, all Brent parks had Green Flags awarded 10 years ago, now the fact that we are at no. 14 out of 20 on the 20 London Borough Park List, is shameful. The NHS state that parks and green open spaces save them millions of ££££££££££££s in benefit to general public. Cleaner Brent, Cleaner Air, you are having a laugh? Practice what you preach.
We have enough CIL money in Wembley to do the job, create legacy, and make us proud to "LOVE WHERE WE LIVE".
Gladstone Park is also in an appalling state. I spent 20 minutes walking around the northern end of that park last week. Many of the beds in the walled garden have clearly not been weeded this year. (And maybe not last year either). Other planted areas are similarly infested with weeds. There is rampant bindweed and brambles in many areas. Self-sown elders, ashes etc are allowed to grow unchecked. Is anyone monitoring Brent's contract with Veolia? For how long will Veolia's extremely poor work be tolerated? Philip Bromberg
ReplyDeleteI think the problem goes back to when the Council awarded the contract to Veolia and agreed that Veolia would monitor itself. I sugegsted at the time this could cause problems. Here is the extract from the Officer's Report: "The contract will be self-monitoring, meaning that the contractor is accountable for measuring, monitoring and improving their own performance with the council carefully auditing their performance. This, along with Key Outcome Targets set for each of the different services will ensure that the Contractor is motivated to deliver the services." It would be worth knowing exactly what 'careful auditing' the council is doing.
DeleteI must say that this is just so typical and is a sad but accurate reflection of the poor judgement that comes from Brent council.
DeleteTime and again they give contracts out which result complaints from local residents because the work Veolia is doing falls below the standard expected from them.
This reminds me of BHP and how they also fell short on just about every level.
This is exactly why my faith in Brent council is dying and I can't imagine feeling any better anytime soon.
It would be interesting to know who or which department at Brent Council has the job of monitoring and auditing the work of Veolia? Is this a desk job exercise or do people actually get off their chairs and make site visits?
ReplyDeleteOne would imagine it should be the Parks department, but sadly not. There is no quality control of contracts done by Brent Council, otherwise our Parks would not be in the state that they are in. Since Veolia took over the contract I have never once seen anyone pruning shrubs, maintaining trees, or using anything that resembles a hoe, fork or spade.
DeleteHave to say Chris Whyte (Operational Officer for Environmental Services) met myself and a colleague, walked all around the park with us back in April and noted everything we highlighted. I was very happy to hear that he took on board our comments and ensured that half of the top half of the park was essential for informal play and subsequently the grass has been cut. However, he is only one of a very few number of officers that actually do their job and care about what residents think, but are very few and far between. So yes there are some that get off their chairs, and if you can contact them, they can and will try to make a difference, however they are at the mercy of Cabinet Policy and Decision making.
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