Jump to content

Funding cuts, "Big Society", and shovelling walks


Recommended Posts

When living in the States (Philadelphia) we were required by ordinance, within 24 hours of the end of a snowfall, to have the walks in front of our house cleared a yard wide and gritted. Officers patrolled and fines were issued for non-compliance. Every householder / renter, every custodian (in apartment buildings), had a snowshovel and a grit bucket -- or an arrangement with a teenager two doors away, a neighbour, or the like, who would do the shovelling. Our renters' insurance included liability for slips and falls on "our" walks.


Might not such an ordinance, brought into effect in Southwark (or at least in SE22), perhaps coupled with a warning to check the terms under which one is insured, save money for the Borough and spare some other service from funding cuts? Could it be brought into effect in time for the 2011-2012 snow season?


I'd rather shovel my own walks than lose two days' service at the Grove Vale library branch, for example...


Mr Barber, your thoughts?

Narnia Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> As excellent an idea as this might be, I don't

> think it is fair to expect Mr.Barber to pick up on

> a particular thread amongst many threads, when he

> has his own thread for specific questions for him.


Why doesn't someone "shovel" this thread over to Ol' J.B ?



;-)

(tu)

This sounds quite utopian in essence but unfortunately for me, 'big society' is a mask for 'big savings'. These big savings will hit the most vulnerable. 'Big society' my arse. Now we are getting a real glimpse of what cameron et al are all about.


I'd like to think that neighbourly behaviour such as clearing paths of ice should be gesture of good will, rather than law.

I'd like that too!


But humans (or this particular humans, and many of his acquaintance) need ... encouragement to behave at their best. Dog mess, litter, you name it. We all fall short of what ought to be. An ordinance (Don't litter; take away your dog's droppings; shovel your walk) acknowledges that need for encouragement.

Not sure about ordinances, although quite happy to shovel if required (and can borrow a shovel, don't have much need for one in a first floor flat!), but I'm not sure about insurance - wouldn't this be yet another excuse for the insurance companies to put our premiums up?


Also, proving liability would be a nightmare. What if you're away for the weekend, it snows, you're not there to clear it (and no-one else you can contact can do it either - would certainly be the case for us), someone slips... and your insurance premiums sky rocket, or your insurer refuses to pay out as you weren't there to clear the snow and you get sued by the slipee.

The Big Society is about far mora than this - about the legion of people that run Scout Groups, Girl Guides, youth clubs, Saturday morning football clubs, boot fairs for charity, check their neighbours to see if they need assistance, doing all this and much, much more.


A practical example (from USA) - a good friend of mine, expat Scotsman, came down with a major, life threatening, illness. He lived in a medium sized town in Louisianna. His neighbours organised a rota to ensure his wife was driven to the specialist hospital, took his children to school, cooked meals for the family and had the children to stay overnight. All pretty good - and you might congratulate yourselves that "we would do that too" - excepth this went on for 15 months. That's a community looking after its own - and is the sort of thing that should be second nature in a Big Society.


BTW - my friends had only lived in that community for two / three years.

How much council tax (or equivalent) did you pay in Philly?


If I didn't pay any (or a substantially reduced amount) then fair enough. But at the current level I believe that money should be used to pay for services such as street cleaning including, on those rare occassions, snow and ice.

@david_carnell: Around $350 / year to the county for services (street cleaning, lighting, rubbish collection once the week, fire / police / paramedics), around $1750 / year to the city for schools / libraries. Yep, the city levied a fee to support the educational system.


Different scheme altogether, eh?

David Carnell - if we expect the "authorities" to do everything because we pay them that leads to a stifling bureaucracy and evisceration of civic society, never mind Big Society.


The more we do for ourselves, our neighbours and our community the more focussed, more appropriate and, probably, the higher the quality the services will be. An additional bonus would be to reduce the cost of local and national services.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • Where did I say he did a good job? Yup and Corbyn was very close to Len McCluskey and funded by Unite wasn't he...they're all as bad as each other... Labour have to purge their party of the far-left - they're a disaster. Allan Johnson summed it up so well on election night in 2019....  
    • Thank you for the detailed advise @trinidad It is definitely damage we are concerned about. I don’t think Evri would agree to pay the bill to fix our gate or letter box if they were to be damaged as a result of their delivery drivers helper. Our doorbell can be heard from outside when rung so we don’t quite believe the aggressive simultaneous door/letter box banging is necessary. It can be quite a shock it is done very aggressively.  I’ll definitely action the steps you’ve kindly provided along with a phone call tomorrow. I do sympathise with the role drivers have and how busy they are, which is why we tried communicating directly with her but sadly we haven’t succeeded 
    • What outcome would you like? Disciplinary action? Not to have the driver back? Retraining? I know there is alot of pressure on drivers to deliver within a set day. if he slams the gate, is it evidence he is causing damage, or is the noise a irritant to yourself? You could put a sign up or buy a signing asking to close the gate gentle???? can you hear the door bell from the door? he might be ringing, not hearing and therefore knocking. In trhe notes section of the be livery page, there is a note section, although there is not 100 per cent these notes would be read as these drivers are constantly rushing.  I did a google search for you, i found this and you can try the envri website Contact Us | Evri   To complain to Evri, you can follow these steps: Contact Customer Service: Call Evri's customer service at 0330 808 5456 for assistance with your complaint.    1 Write a Letter: Address your complaint to Capitol House, 1 Capitol Close, Morley, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS27 0WH.    1 Use the Official Website: Visit the Evri complaints page on their official website for detailed instructions on how to submit a complaint.    2 Email or Call for Specific Issues: For issues like missing or damaged parcels, you can email or call 0800 988 8888, which is free to call.    1 These methods will help you effectively communicate your concerns to Evri.   My driver is called anthony, he is brilliant to be honest. I cant fault him.
    • When I have more time and energy, I will look up the actual number of votes cast for each party in that election, rather than the number of seats won. I'm interested to see that you apparently  think that  Boris Johnson did a good job of "leading the country through Covid." Is your memory really that short? I won't stoop to calling Johnson and his cronies names in the way that you seem to think is appropriate for left wing politicians. At least the left wing politicians have some semblance of morals and a concern for people who aren't in some over privileged inner circle and/or raking in money for themselves on the back of an epidemic. I'm not going to open a can of worms on here  by commenting on the disgraceful so called "purge". 
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...