Those of you living in the North Willenhall area can’t have missed the added attention being given to the area by Clean and Green over the past few days.

At long last the leaves that have been clogging up our gutters and drains and turning some footpaths into a slippery, slimy mess have been swept up. Pity it’s taken this long as the damage has been done. Drains have become blocked and areas that we’ed thought had been cured of flooding had seen the floods return during recent heavy downpours.

I have spent time during the deep clean on a walkabout with an officer from Clean and Green just making sure that they a fully aware of all the problem sites affected by littering and fly tipping. There are too many to mention them all here but of particular concern is the state of the walkway along the old mineral railway that runs at the back of houses in Hawthorne Rd, Pooles Lane from Littleton Rd and out onto the Lichfield Rd. There’s some asbestos that was dumped over a year ago which we have been trying to get the council to shift for what feels like forever. Hopefully this should be sorted shortly. it might take a little longer than the one or two days left of the deep clean due to it being asbestos, it needs to be handled and disposed of differently but fingers crossed we should have seen the last of it soon.

Had a word with the officer to see if Clean and Green could put some pressure on Highways England to clear the copious amounts of fly tipping along the M6 embankment alongside the walkway which runs from Broadmeadows Rd to the Lichfield Rd. This is Crown Land and the responsibility of Highways England to keep clean.

Other areas to highlight are the roads and footpaths around Beacon Primary School, in particular Moore Rd, where the leaves from the autumn had been reduced to mush making it difficult for pedestrians as well as blocking the drains.

One final word on this, Walsall Town Centre has been given special treatment by the Tories currently running Walsall Council. There are more sweepers in Walsall Town Centre on any one day than we see in a month here in the Willenhall area it’s not fair and it’s not right, we all pay our taxes. Walsall MBC is made up of Walsall itself along with its five towns, Willenhall included. The Council Leader, Cllr Bird and his friends in the corridors of power can argue as much as they like that they are having to do this because of government cuts. It’s their Government that has caused the problem, they need to find a fairer way of dealing with it.