The Blackhall PACT meeting for November took place last night in the Parish Office on Middle Street.
Despite a slightly reduced turn out compared to recent months there were a number of local issues reported. Most of them related to environmental issues associated with back yards and the generally untidy condition of some of the private sector properties in the numbered streets, most notably in Second and Tenth Streets. Progress on some of these issues is covered in the post towards the end of this article.
There was a recap at the meeting of some of the measures taken to clear-up after the bonfire event was held on East Street on Sunday night - including the removal of a vehicle from the embers the day afterwards! An update on my request for replacement fencing along the bottom of First Street and Aspatria Avenue is reported in the link below.
There were also queries raised about farm waste abandoned beside the road leading from the Navy Club bridge down towards Deneholme. This had been reported at a previous PACT meeting and police enquiries since then have shown that the land in question is privately owned and the waste dumped there is apparently by private arrangement. This matter cannot therefore be addressed by the police or public authorities at this stage.
In response to a report that the dog/waste bin at the corner of Ninth Street and the alley behind Blackhall Colliery primary school has gone missing I've raised a request this morning for a replacement bin to be installed as soon as possible.
A request for repairs to the road behind Glenholme Terrace had also been raised with the highways section earlier this week, but in response I've been told that the road is in private ownership and as such repairs and maintenance responsibilities fall to the landowner.
A number of issues that were already being dealt with were covered last night too. These include water damaged public footpaths at Crimdon and along the B1281 between Blackhall Colliery and Hesleden. Full details can be found in this link:
https://robcrute-blackhall.blogspot.com/2023/11/highways-housing-and-footpath-repair.html
By tradition there is no PACT meeting for December so the next meeting will be held in January 2024.