Tory Councillors Caring for You

I don't know about you but I'm getting sick of the excuses we hear from the Council whenever we complain about the appalling state of the Ortons. The Tory councillors seem perfectly happy with how things are, so I've been walking the streets with my camera to capture the neglect that is Orton Longueville today.

This image shows what has happened to many of the seats provided for local residents. Reduced to a pile of broken bricks, these give a simple message, 'No one cares'. There is a real problem with the engineering bricks used throughout the township.

They are simply breaking up into fragments so that everything looks as though it is falling apart. The Council doesn't bother with repairing surfaces, so we have a hazardous patchwork of broken tiles and bricks. This is so commonplace in the Ortons it is obvious there is no system to monitor this process of erosion and decay, no budget to finance regular repairs, and no way to communicate with hived off service providers.


No one is keeping an eye open, in fact they hope you'll come to accept this standard too.

The Council doesn't care about signs either - there is no effort to renew, maintain or replace signposts or street name plaques that have reached the end of their natural lives. This example shows a spot where the signs rusted away years ago, leaving the uprights to sit on the corner as a reminder of how civilized the Ortons were before the Tories got their hands on the maintenance budgets.

Some plants, shrubs and trees do receive an annual trim. Judge from these pictures how well they set off the area. In the shot below, notice the missing coping stones and the litter impaled in the bushes.








But there's plenty of colour in Orton Longueville Ward and you'll love it if you are a teenager with a spray can. You may be less happy if it is your house that has attracted the youthful artists with their taste for vivid images. There is obviously no system for identifying and removing graffiti - the examples below have been on public display for ages.
The left hand cartoon greets local primary children as they arrive at school; the right hand landscape decorates a resident's home.





The Tories have been decisive in dealing with other problems, however. The beautiful Lady Lodge Arts Centre, with its cluster of historic farm buildings, performance facilities, bars and workshop units for local business has been run down, left to the mercy of vandals and finally demolished. I wonder whether the Council will choose to replace the lost community facilities or whether the site will be sold off for private housing. It is a shameful betrayal of the Development Corporation legacy.

On the whole, the Tories have always preferred to save money, even if this has meant creating a stark, rundown environment for local residents. The picture below seems to embody their vision of what Orton Longueville should look like.

There is no point writing to your Tory councillors about these problems - they are more interested in saving money and expect to win local elections without making any effort on our behalf.

I'm absolutely determined to campaign for Orton Longueville and to demand an end to the blight that has fallen on the local landscape. You deserve better than this and cuts or no cuts this squalor must be tackled.

Lisa

March 2011