Whilst other local councillors seem to be more interested in celebrating the result of last week’s referendum or are in turmoil over who should lead their Party post Brexit your Liberal Democrat Focus Team get on with the job you elected us to do, represent your interests on Walsall Council.

Over the last week Liberal Democrat Cllr Ian Shires and his team have conducted site visits and held meetings with Officers on issues raised by local residents. Issues include:

• The overgrown state of the walkway between Coltham Road and Littleton Road on Forest Gate Estate and the link through from Coltham road to Bloxwich Road North. As a result of the site visit here Walsall’s Clean and Green Service has agreed to cut back the low lying grass and brambles to a distance of 2 metres from the walkway and lift the overhanging branches prior to running a mechanical sweeper along both walkways.
• Following meetings with Clean and Green management at Walsall Council extra grass cutting teams have been diverted to grassed areas across our area in a bid to catch up on grass cutting schedules. Cutbacks instigated by the previous Labour administration further compounded by the Tories last year when they reinstated the full grass schedules and tried to deliver it with a much reduced labour force combined with the extreme wet weather had left our green spaces looking more like meadows.
• Discussions have been held about improving the cleanliness of The Square on the Lichfield Road and the surrounding area.
• Site visits have taken place along the northern section of the Linier Walkway that runs fro the Lichfield Road through Coppice Farm Neighbourhood Park towards Essington. Cutbacks have seen maintenance of the tree copses towards the top end of this walkway reduced to almost non existence with the resulting problems of copses merging and becoming overgrown. Work on rectifying this can’t take place till later in the year due to the growing season.

We live in interesting times…….