Report on Rescue effort 2009 – Tilehurst Globe

Summary

The weather contributed to one of our most successful Rescue events. We had more volunteers helping than in previous years. We were joined by a team of people from Barclays Bank in the Triangle and also we had a team of Guides helping on Saturday morning.

We were pleased to have new volunteers leaders for the Sunday sessions.

Summary of Tilehurst Globe Rescue Weekend 2009 (2008 in brackets)

Session	Number of adult volunteers	Number of children volunteers	Where cleared in 2009
Saturday am	19 (12)	7 (3)	Central Tilehurst including ground behind Coop, along School Road, Triangle, Walnut Way, Blagrave Rec., by Horticultural shed etc
Saturday pm	14 (15)	7 (14)	Blundells Copse
Sunday am	8 (5)	2 (3)	Bottom end of McIlroys, by the railway house, Bates Hill down to Oxford Road, Beechwood Ave to Princeof Wales
Sunday pm	12 (10)	6 (3)	Gypsy Lane – up to McIlroys, Kentwood Hill side of Arthur Newbury Park. Beechwood Ave and area off School Rd
Total volunteers for sessions	57 (42)	19 (23)

Pam Webb and a team from Beechwood cleared an area by the Prince of Wales. Their detailed report is separate below – they had 6 adult and 6 children volunteers for the session,(included in totals above) We were also joined by volunteers from Armour Road Residents Association (separate report).

Points about the organization

· We would have appreciated knowing upfront that the weekend collection service comprised two lorries – the one that collected electrical items, metal etc and the normal waste collection lorry. It would have helped the volunteers sort the rubbish accordingly. Nevertheless the dual collection service was much appreciated.

· We found the use of orange/clear bags a bit difficult to manage from time to time but provided people were working in pairs or in a group it was about manageable. It was good to see the amount of landfill saved.

· The summary sheet indicated that there green bags should be used for the separate collection of green waste but the people on the Rescue hotline did not seem to know about this service (see report below). The green bags were not collected immediately and were therefore vulnerable.

· There was a real and serious problem with the information we were given by the Rescue team about the skips. The pre Rescue letter said that skips would be collected on Monday or Tuesday. In fact Hadley’s were waiting for a telephone call to say when the skip was ready for collection. We could easily have told Hadley’s at any time that the skips would be ready by Monday morning. This mixup caused a great amount of added effort for the organizers since they were on call for three days after the event attempting to prevent fly-tipping in the vulnerable skips at the Coop car park, Potteries Road and especially at Kentwood Hill. This definitely needs to be sorted out next year with very clear instructions given to the local organizers and skip monitors about what their duties are.

· We were unhappy that several of the phoned in reports by volunteers asking for collections to be removed were overlooked (at Bramble Close and Aylsham Close for example) on the day and needed further prompting later in the week. This has the affect of degrading the success of the event – local people are worried by the piles of waste awaiting collection, particularly when they are not familiar with the event itself.

What can be done to improve the general tidyiness throughout the year?

Central Tilehurst

· Land behind Himalayan Hotspot (corner of Norcot Rd and School Rd): Since the rebuilding and extension of the shutters business, we had hoped that the untidiness in this corner would be permanently improved – however this is not so, there is a lot of litter still there and it is still an eyesore.

· At this corner there is also a serious problem that there are gas canisters stored there without any sort of protection. The public is able to access the canisters which should be caged as a minimum, but should probably not be stored there at all. This needs serious and urgent investigation. The source is probably the Indian restaurant.

· We would like local businesses (eg Parkers) to take more responsibility for the litter on their premises

· KFC should take greater part in removing their litter

· We could still do with really large capacity bins throughout the main part of Central Tilehurst. We have insufficient number of large deep litter bins with slots in the tops – a week after the clearup many corners are again littered – we think because litter is blown out of the bins as well as dropped by the inconsiderate public. In particular we could do with bins by the bus stop by the library (at corner of Corwen Rd) and the bus stop opposite the library, in Victoria rec. The bus stop opposite the Library does not have any sort of litter bin and the stop is permanently surrounded by rubbish. We have asked for more bins in previous years but still do not have them.

· There is still no news about what is going to happen to the Recreation Rd car park .The recycling bins temporarily disappeared and then reappeared.

· We have been asked by the businesses on Norcot Road whether it would be possible to have double yellow lines along Lemart Close at the rear of their premises; this would considerably help them with delivery lorries etc gaining access to these premises. (It would also be helpful to some plant some trees in the car prk to improve its looks)

Blundells Copse and McIlroys – dumping from householders

· There was some litter by Bran Close entrance but less than last year but at the back of the houses in Ogmore Close and Teviot Road the rubbish was still unpleasant especially since it is probably the householders who are dumping the rubbish. We did not attempt to clear all the rubbish along this part of the copse but we would appreciate it if RBC would write to the householders in Teviot and Ogmore urging them to be responsible and not to chuck their rubbish into the copse. The odd prosecution would help as a deterent. TRACA should be contacted to help with identifying the culprits.

· We would also urge that resident’s backing on to McIlroys on Thirlemere Avenue are sent letters by the council re dumping rubbish into the park over their back fences – some of the dumping is blatantly from these houses. We cleared a huge pile of rubbish from this area. Chris Cliburn, of Friends of McIlroys, should be contacted to help identify the culprits.

McIlroys and Bates Hill – dumping of newspapers

· We cleared Bates Hill (the path that runs between Thirlmere Rd and Oxford Rd near Waitrose); it suffers from much newspaper (Evening Post) dumping which we have reported but are not convinced that it will be collected this year.

· Also the patch of waste land at the bottom of Bates Hill on the Oxford Road was very unclean. There were several items (car keys, mobile phones, etc) that indicate that this is an area used by miscreants. The found items were handed into the police.

Gypsy Lane/Kentwood end of Arthur Newbury

· The bottle bank that has recently been installed in the bus layby is attracting rubbish – mostly bottle tops. There is a bin, but perhaps a large note to ask people to use the rubbish bins would not come amiss. The fence by the bus layby is still broken. It should be fixed to help prevent access into Arthur Newbury Park and dumping at this point.

· Can there be more publicity about what to do it you find the abandoned newpapers/magazines. Although the area had fewer piles of dumped newspapers than last year it is still a problem.

Beechwood Avenue to Prince of Wales Pub

Report by Pam Webb who organized another very successful session again.

We finished with 6 adults and 6 children and cleared the brambles quite well. Litter wasn't too bad this year although the usual cans, bottles and cigarette packets etc had been thrown in there by the casual passer by.

We found a dead mouse or baby rat that had crawled inside a bottle then couldn't get out.

There was a heavy duty padlock - but no key, part of the fitting from a satellite dish, something that looked like half of a litter picker and a wheel trim that we left by the bags.

We filled 8 bags (2 orange, 2 clear and 6 green) but we used green wheelie bins for the bulk of the brambles - I would estimate another 6 bags. I also think some of the bottles were taken away for recycling by one of the volunteers so we had spare bags which I returned.

The collection was not as successful this year. My first call was just before I brought everything back to you and I was told that they weren't collecting green bags ! I said that I'd been given green bags so she agreed to collect them but sounded very unsure about the location. I checked at about 4.30pm and the bags were still there so I called again. This time she recognised the location and said they had been collecting the skips from nearby but had finished for the day. I assured her that the pavement was clear but could not give any assurance that the bags would be in tact by Monday. It would be a good laugh for someone to scatter the contents all over the road or for cats/foxes to tear open the bags!

General Remarks – praise where due

The chaps from Reading Borough Council who work over the weekend providing the skimming service were brilliant again (not forgetting the chaps with the other collection lorry). Without them the weekend could not work so successfully. This year they did exactly what they said they would do – and came pretty much at the times that they said they would. Wonderful chaps!

Many thanks to all the people who turned out to help clear up the mess.

And

On a brighter note, a young chap – Cassius – who was out for a walk – joined in and helped us clear the considerable mounds of rubbish at the Potteries end of Gypsy Lane. And when he had finished off he went without a word to continue his walk. Many thanks to him.