Councillors plan to tackle town issues

By timesecholife on in All News, Community News

A RAFT of measures are to be considered to tackle a catalogue of problems in Cheadle. Cheadle Town Council are sending a list of issues to district and county authorities in a bid to see improvements in the appearance of the town. And, members of the town council are looking at new ways of dealing with perennial problems such as dog mess, verges and the town centre.

At a meeting of the council on Monday, June 3, Cllr Jamie Evans had put forward several items for debate on the agenda, including the state of street furniture in Greyhound Walk, the restoration of the Market Cross, a ‘deficiency’ in signage around Cheadle, concerns over local bus services and a dog DNA service to combat dog waste.

Cllr Evans said: “People have been moaning about dog dirt around the town. Shops are having to shut because dogs are just there doing their business.

“There is a DNA service – they come into town, swab dogs and find out which dogs have done what mess and then that can be followed up.

“Our town bus service only covers half the town. Can we arrange a meeting with the bus company and the county council to see what we can do?

“The thing that baffles me the most is that people come out of Pugin’s Gem and there’s nothing to direct them to the town centre. I think we need to do a review of signs around the town.”

The council agreed to look at ways of tackling the issues raised and liaising with Staffordshire Moorlands District Council and Staffordshire County Council in a bid to get out-standing works – that are the responsibility of those councils – underway.

Cllr Ron Locker told the meeting: “I think because we’ve got so many new councillors and young councillors, we need to go through these procedures again.

“I think in fairness, we can tell them we’ve tried these things and this is how it is, but we should do them again.

“We should try and put these issues to the other councils on behalf of the traders in the town.”

A further item for discussion – a lack of verge cutting in and around Cheadle – had been put forward by Cllr Richard Alcock. He said: “It’s terrible around the country lanes. It’s dangerous. We need to write to the county council and tell them to get it done.”

He was backed up by Cllr Stephen Ellis, who said: “I totally agree with Richard on this. Whilst he’s talked about rural lanes, there’s a lot of areas in the town where we have grassed verges.

“It’s almost knee height and for anyone visiting, it doesn’t create the right impression.

“It also makes it extremely difficult to pick things like dog waste and litter. It does have a knock-on effect.”

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