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Newsletter 171 - February 2002

In this issue:

• Situation Vacant
• Patience Required
• Patience pays off
• Neighbours!
• Mast in the Past
• St Nicholas Church
• Talking Rubbish
• Doing the Dirty Work
• Still no planning application!
• Work from Home in Castle Street!
• It's that time again!

Situation Vacant

Honorary Secretary of the Regency Square Area Society

Duties: prepare agendas and minutes for monthly committee meetings and the AGM. Write letters to the Council, MPs etc on behalf of the committee.

Benefits: play a key role in one of Brighton's most active local societies and in your local community

Starting date: 1 April 2002.

For more information contact the chairman, Roger Hinton.

Patience Required

Number 128 Kings Road has been a blight on our area for many years. The recent fire which gutted the building was just the most recent in a long list of problems including squatters, loud music, drug dealing and a previous fire.

The Council has been trying to persuade the owner to improve the building, but without success.

We in turn have been trying to persuade the Council increase the pressure. In a recent letter to the Society the Council officer dealing with the property explained how he was unable to serve legal notices on the owner because of the lack of a valid address. He suggested that we would need to be patient!

We thought we had been! Hopefully the need for patience will soon be over. The property is now on the market. The guide price is £425,000

Patience pays off

We have also had to be patient in waiting for the promised improvements to the gardens in Clarence, Russell and Regency Squares.

The work is now drawing to a close. New railings in the smaller squares look impressive and the gardens should look good in the spring.

Funds for the work in Regency Square were very limited. Plans for an automatic irrigation system and low-level lighting had to be dropped.

The Council asked big businesses in the area to contribute. BUPA put in £1,000 and the Metropole offered a dinner and overnight stay as a raffle prize. Unfortunately this was not enough.

Neighbours!

Vehicles seem to make deliveries to the Metropole exhibition halls in Queensbury Mews at all hours of the day and night. This is unacceptable in a residential area.

The hotel's policy is to allow loading only from 8am to 10pm Monday to Saturday and lOam to 2pm on Sunday. Unfortunately they don't always stick to it.

Meanwhile at a recent meeting between hotel managers and Council officers, actions were agreed to reduce illegal parking in St Margaret's Place

Mast in the Past

Members were worried to see a mobile phone mast appear on the shore end of the West Pier. Fortunately it was only a temporary fixture. As such it did not need planning permission. It has now been taken down.

St Nicholas Church

The Society has organised a Guided Tour of St Nicholas Church

Time: 11:00-12:30
Date: Saturday 13 April
Cost: £3 including coffee & biscuits

If you want to come please send £3 with your name and telephone number to:

Ros Boulden, 8 Abbotts, 129 Kings Road,
Brighton BN1 2FA

Talking Rubbish

Your committee has had a useful meeting with David Panter, the Council's new chief executive, and Toni Hadlee, the Environmental Liaison Officer.

Our reason for asking for the meeting was to emphasise that while weekly collections have become more reliable in recent months, the basic problem has not been solved. We still have rubbish being put on the Street at all times of the week, a problem which has been with us for years.

David Panter said that refuse collection and street cleaning were the two Council services which directly affected more local people than any other. So he is determined to get them right.

He also agreed that one collection a week might not be enough for some parts of Brighton.

Very encouraging! But what is going to happen? He was not able to be specific at this stage. But he did tell us two important things.

The first is that the Council is planning a major review of refuse collection and street cleaning. The purposes of the review will be to ensure that the Council is achieving "best value" in the way it provides the service. It will involve "challenging" all aspects of the way the service is delivered at present.

The second piece of news is that a new general manager has been appointed for the refuse service. His name is Steve White and he comes from a similar job at Lewisham where he was successful in bringing about major improvements.

We have in the past suggested that the Council should employ someone with a proven track record. It seems that they have now done just that.

Doing the Dirty Work

You might think that collecting refuse is a dirty enough job. But spare a thought for the Council's enforcement officer, Matt Easteal and his colleagues.

Their job is to search through dumped rubbish for evidence of who dumped it. If they find it they then contact the offender and try to persuade them to put rubbish out only at collection time.

They also talk to landlords and managing agents to try to ensure residents of flats and rooms have somewhere to store rubbish.

It is a thankless task. Matt has been accused of breaching people's human rights by searching their rubbish. One person even threatened to put excrement into their rubbish bags.

But he does not give up easily. He has already fined businesses for illegal dumping and he is now threatening some residents in this area with £25 fixed penalties.

Still no planning application!

Those who have been holding their breath for the moment when a planning application is submitted for the proposed buildings by the West Pier will, no doubt, have expired by now.

For the benefit of the rest of us, the news is that an application was expected on Friday 25 January but it did not appear and is not expected for another month or so.

Meanwhile the Save Our Seafront group is continuing to prepare for the major campaign of objections that will be needed when the application is finally published.

Work from Home in Castle Street!

The former Council depot in Castle Street, that was used by the street sweepers, is up for auction. The proposed development is for "live and work" units.

It's that time again!

Subscriptions are due for 2002/3. Please support the Society by renewing now.

A few members have already paid for 2002/3. You can check by looking at the address label on the envelope your newsletter came in. If it shows 02/03 then you don't need to renew.

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