I was contacted late last week by residents reporting disruption and damage caused by vehicles being driven around the grassed area on East Street, and particularly at the bottom of First Street and Aspatria Avenue.
In response I contacted the police, the neighbourhood interventions office, the AAP funding team and also the council’s clean and green team yesterday morning to look at ways of dealing with this issue, specifically by way of preventing unauthorised access at this location. It has been recommended that as a first step more boulders will be positioned around the grassed area at the bottom of First Street and Aspatria Avenue to close the gaps between the boulders already in place. In addition a lockable boom gate will be installed to allow for grass-cutting machinery to gain access.
These measures are now being costed as an extension of an earlier scheme recommended to address similar issues at Chicken’s Green, and which I outlined a few weeks ago on these pages (please see post dated Saturday 19 September 2020 for background details). The intention is to process the entire scheme, including these additional measures, to get works completed as soon as possible. The Area Action Partnership (AAP) team is confident that as soon as the scheme has been passed by the funding board later this month works can begin on-site.
In addition, as reported in an article published in September, I’m also working with the parish clerk and officers from Groundwork on a tree replacement scheme (please see post dated Saturday 19 September 2020 for background details). As part of these plans it might be possible to position trees along East Street in a way that would prevent access by vehicles, however this is just one early suggestion at the moment and all other reasonable proposals will be taken into consideration. This additional element of the scheme may take a little longer to get through the system but I’ve asked that it be progressed as quickly as possible.
I’ll update on progress with both schemes as soon as I have news from the AAP funding team.
