We are stating the New Year on a positive note

Those of you who live near or travel along the parade of shops at York Road towards the bus stops bound for town will have noticed there has been a really remarkable turnaround in the standards of street cleaning in this area recently.

COVEN spoke to the gentleman in charge of the street cleaning service at the last Inner East Area Committee meeting in December and pointed out the disgusting state of the pavements in this area particularly and asked for him, Mr John Woolmer, to look into the situation and see what could be done.  We are happy to say that Mr Woolmer and his staff have made herculean efforts recently and as a result the area is now no longer the smelly and shameful site it was.

COVEN has also asked about having rubbish bins placed near the take aways and off-licences on the parade and this is being looked into but as always finance is the sticking point on this, though we have great faith in Mr Woolmer doing all that can be done to procure these items to help the clean up stay clean.

The street cleaning staff are working very hard to keep the area clear of rubbish but it would help if those who live here did their own part and made sure that all rubbish is placed in bins (if and when we managed to get them installed) and not left to blow about the streets.

Another really disgusting problem in this area is the amount of dog mess on every available pavement, road, green space or playground.  This has been raised several times with our councillors, Street Cleaning and the dog wardens however the main problem again seems to be that there are not enough dog wardens to effectively police the whole city and there is no money to hire more but we intend to keep after everyone involved to see if this problem can at least be lessened if not eliminated.

If you have any problem or query that you would like COVEN to look into please email us at ls94ever@gmail.com and we will be happy to talk to you about it.

Work so far on the Old York Road Library

You will have seen in the local paper recently, and in the latest Lib Dem leaflet, that both Labour and Lib Dems are claiming the credit for getting a temporary roof fitted to this landmark Grade II Listed Building to prevent further damage and decay to the fabric of this building.



Well here are some pictures on the quality of the work which has been done so far which we do not believe either of our local politicians will be willing to claim the credit for, since it is clearly very shoddy and substandard, paying only the barest lip-service to the intentions of both the Council officers and local residents to save this building in spite of its present owner.

    

Schedule 1 attached to urgent works notice

1. Remove all existing slate from the roof and place inside the building.
2. Provide reinforcement to damaged roof structures to allow safe working and to support temporary roof described below.
3. Line valleys with lapped heavy gauge Visqueen DPC or single-ply rubber membrane, held down with continuous strap laths laid along the length of the valleys.  The visqueen or alternative should an upstand of a minimum of 300mm and should dressed into the gullies to ensure discharge of rainwater into down pipes.     
4. Cover all roofs in heavy gauge Visqueen DPC membrane, all membrane to be lathed at 300mm centres. Visqueen will be laid so that there is a continuous run from the sarking membrane down into the valleys.
5. Tower to be covered with Visqueen
6. Clear down pipes and gullies and refix missing sections of down pipe in UPVC sufficient to ensure that rainwater discharges to the gullies.  
7. Fix steel door inside existing sheeting to rear door.

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Refers to point 4


The plastic sheeting in the middle roof is lifting, revealing the wooden roof slats - how is this supposed to make the roof watertight?






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Refers to point 4

Here you can clearly see that the plastic sheeting has completely pulled away from the staircase - and this before the jobs is even finished.



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Refers to point 6

Here you can quite clearly see that no drain collection box has been fitted to the down drainpipe leaving any rainfall actually collected from the roof  to run down the walls, internally or externally.  It is also clear that the holes punched in the fabric of the building by the scaffolders have simply been left to open further damaging the  building

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You can see the many holes punched in the windows to make room for the scaffolding poles have been left completely open, no attempt has been made to board them up and pigeons are roosting in the the building.  Clearly no attempt whatsoever has been made to make this building even minimally watertight



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Windows have been either broken or removed to accommodate scaffolding poles, since they have not been either replaced or boarded where this has happened we have not confidence that this will be the case here.



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Trees and shrubs cut down close to the building to give the scaffolders access have been piled up and left, along with an accumulation of other rubbish posing a fire hazard to the building.

Please click here to see the written answers to our questions raised by COVEN at the Inner East Area Committee Meeting on the Old Library building, its sale and maintenance.  It lists what should have been done in Schedule 1, it is apparent that on point 4 and 6 this clearly has not happened.  It also states that damage caused by the need to erect scaffolding will be repaired but it is clear that it has not been and the scaffolding has now been removed so it is not going to be done either.

It also raises questions about how this building, while in council therefore residents ownership, was allowed to deteriorate to such a state that it sold for so very little before being allowed to deteriorate to its present pitiable condition.