Tag Archives: FixMyStreet

Fix Before The Freeze

Posted on November 3, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Fix Before The Freeze is a really simple campaign that everyone can get involved in. All you need to do is, on your journey home from work tonight – or while out-and-about, or  even just by looking from your house window –  check things like street lights not working, broken pavements and pot-holes then use Fix My Street to report them to the council.

Reporting a broken street light may save someone being injured by a car or even from being mugged.

Pot-holes and broken pavements will only get worse once we start getting freezing nights so take five minutes to report them now before they get any worse.

All you need to do to report any problems via www.fixmystreet.com fill in a few details and press send. If you can get a picture with your phone you can add this to the report to make it even easier for the council to find the problem you are reporting.

See on HU12 the Wrap up for Winter campaign from Yorkshire Water.

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Posted in Hedon

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Yorkshire Water Smells – What residents are saying

Posted on July 22, 2011 by | 9 Comments

THE SMELLS from the Yorkshire Water Waste Water Treatment Works have been particularly bad again over the last three weeks.

Since 27th June there have been 114 complaints recorded at Yorkshire Water. Fix My Street has captured the mood of  some disgusted residents:

“What a stink, the directors of the site should live near it to see what it’s like. Keep your windows closed folks, it’s a smelly one today!”

“Plant stinking again.”

“This really is getting ridiculous, are we living in Victorian England. This obnoxious smell was supposedly being dealt with yet, the smell just seems to be getting worse.”

“The stench coming from the waste treatment plant on thursday 30 june at 7pm was disgusting and foul.”

“Unbearable smells”

“I don’t know what going on at yorkshire water,but the stench from the treatment works for the last ten days has been disgusting. Nobody should have to live with smells like these every day. this is supposed to be the 21st century, not the sixteen hundreds when they tipped sewage into the streets.”

“Would you want to sit outside and have a meal with smells like these everyday. You try and run a business with this stench on your doorstep.”

Yorkshire Water has highlighted that it is the pea harvesting season with subsequent increased levels of slurry being discharged by processing factories into the city’s sewage network. This has also coincided with a mechanical issue with their chemical dosing equipment which has reduced the efficiency of the odour control unit.

The Yorkshire Water Hull and Saltend News web page does explain that the system is now working again and performing well. They say:

“We are very sorry for any inconvenience this incident may have caused. Should you wish to discuss this further, please contact us on 08451 24 24 24.”

Keep reporting the smells – so Yorkshire Water can act quickly to tackle any incident.

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Posted in Hedon, Holderness, Hull

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Did you know… It pays to complain about Street Lighting!

Posted on March 18, 2011 by | 1 Comment

THE HEDON BLOG, with a little prompting from me, reported a street light that was constantly on last Monday (in front of St Augustine’s on the footpath between Distaff and Kettlewell Lane). This daylight-burning lamp would seem to be a waste of power, especially at a time when we are all being cajoled into saving energy and money. And quite frankly, to be honest, it just irritates the hell out of me to see money literally burning away.

A little digging around on WhatDoTheyKnow.com came up with this useful information regarding street lighting:

  • The East Riding Council is responsible for 38,580 street lights
  • The average wattage of bulb used is 77 watts
  • The annual maintenance cost to the Council is £380,000
  • The annual electricity cost is £1.36m

Perhaps our lamp burning all day in front of the church will not add that much to the overall bill – but I like to think that my timely reporting of the problem is doing some good. It does pay to complain!

Post by Mr Grumpy

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Posted in Hedon

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Who is responsible for this street light…!? Is it one of yours!?

Posted on February 12, 2011 by | 2 Comments

WHOSE STREET LIGHT IS THIS? 

Hedon Blog readers are asked if they can help solve the mystery of who is responsible for a street light on Heron Close, Hedon which has not worked for over a year

Janice Edmonds first reported the light to East Riding Council in January 2010 after noticing it had not been working for months. They said “it’s not ours” and a local housing association was probably responsible. She reported it on FixMyStreet and got the same response from the East Riding Council.

After speaking to neighbours about who might be possible local landlords, Janice has contacted both North British Housing and Sanctuary Housing who both claimed “it’s not ours”.

Janice asked if the Hedon Blog could help in March 2010 – but, despite having the whole of the internet to track down the elusive landlord, ‘Sherlock Blog’ couldn’t help.

Janice has recently made a further call to the East Riding Council who suggested contacting Hedon Town Council… who in turn suggested contacting East Riding Council!

Janice  is quite rightly concerned about dark spots and feeling safe when returning home on a night and feels frustrated that she can’t find who to report the problem to: “Everyone I speak to is very polite and willing to help, but it seems nobody can. It’s always a case of ‘it’s not ours!”

So if anyone out there in the Hedon Blogosphere can help Janice, she would really like to know who is responsible for repairing this faulty light.

Landlords – is it one of yours!

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Posted in Debate, Hedon

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Blood reported on Fix My Street!

Posted on August 25, 2010 by | 1 Comment

THE HEDON BLOG has long extolled the virtues of using Fix My Street to report neighbourhood problems i.e. pot holes, cracked pavements, broken street lights, etc.

However, a report posted on Monday, was a bit more unusual:

Blood on the pavement

“On Sunday 22nd August there was excessive blood on the pavement from Lloyds Bank to above the Coop. I returned later a few hours later and no attempt had been made by anyone to clean this up. Although I appreciate that this was a Sunday, I do feel that the amount of blood on the pavement warranted someone from the Council to clean the pavement, even if it meant using an external company.”

It seems that there was an alleged assault outside a take-away early on Saturday night which involved a man being hit over the head!

Needless to say the East Riding Council ensured that the offending blood stain was removed within 24 hours of the report.

You can keep an eye on local Fix My Street issues by looking at the left hand side-bar on the Hedon Blog – and of course you can easily add new problems in your immediate area by clicking on Report a problem and entering your postcode, marking the location on a map and leaving the appropriate details.

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Posted in Hedon, Holderness

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Reporting the Smells

Posted on July 16, 2010 by | 1 Comment

COMPLAINTS ABOUT BAD SMELLS in the area, presumably emanating from Yorkshire Water’s Waste Water facility at Saltend, have increased over the last 3 weeks.

The recent dry weather has undoubtedly made the odour situation worse, but local people will also be heartened about the raised publicity about this recurring – albeit improving – problem. This will have encouraged more people to complain rather than just live with the smells!

Yorkshire Water - complaints last week

The Yorkshire Water web-page Hull and Saltend News has been updated with odour complaint reports for the first time since March this year, and has logged 14 complaints from 14th June to 4th July 2010.

This post outlines some of the ways that you might like to report any experiences of bad smells. With each method you should record your location and the time of the experience.

1. The Yorkshire Water Customer Helpline is 0845 1 24 24 24. Their postal address for complaints is:

Yorkshire Water
PO Box 52
Bradford
BD3 7YD

Email: contact_us@yorkshirewater.com

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2. East Riding Council list the methods to contact them on their Compliments and Complaints web-page. This includes:

Environmental control
Public protection
East Riding of Yorkshire Council
County Hall
Beverley
HU17 9BA

Tel: 01482 396301

Email: air.quality@eastriding.gov.uk

Also of interest will be the Council’s  Air Pollution Section Website.

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3. If you smell an odour at home (or know your location precisely when you experienced the bad smell) then you can also use FixMyStreet to report odours.

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4. You could contact your local East Riding Councillors or indeed your Hedon Town Councillors all of whom would be able to act on your behalf.

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Posted in East Yorkshire UK, Hedon, Holderness

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FixMyStreet: Reporting, and viewing neighbourhood problems

Posted on June 30, 2010 by | Leave a comment

FixMyStreet is a special website that allows people to easily report neighbourhood problems to a local council – such as graffiti, litter and broken streetlights.

The website has grown in popularity since its launch over 3 years ago, including its use in the Hull, Holderness and East Riding area. See a listing of all those issues reported to the East Riding Council.

Reporting a problem is easy – you visit FixMyStreet and enter a postcode or a street name and the town or village where you live (example Westlands Road, Hedon). This takes you to a map of the particular area. You can click on the map at the location of your neighbourhood problem and this takes you to a page where you can report the problem and even upload a photograph of it.

Once you have clicked Submit and reported the problem, then it takes only a couple of minutes for FixMyStreet to send the problem to the relevant council.

FixMyStreet is also useful for viewing problems in the local area – and you can even add your own comments and join in with – or start – a discussion.

You can also arrange to get regular alerts by e-mail about problems reported in your local area.

The really useful thing about FixMyStreet is its easy public access from your own computer. It is easy to use!

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Posted in East Yorkshire UK, Hedon, Holderness

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Unreported Potholes crisis

Posted on March 29, 2010 by | Leave a comment

DESPITE RECEIVING a £1.1m Government grant to repair pot- holes, the East Riding Council has claimed that far greater resources are needed to ensure that repairs and maintenance take place.

The total cost of mending potholes, broken paving slabs, crumbling surfacing materials, worn-out highways, bridges and footpaths has been estimated to be at least £316.5m with the problem having been aggravated due to the impact of the severe freezing weather in December and January.

However, the problem may be even worse due to the fact that lots of needed repairs remain unreported. The Council carries out structural surveys on a regular basis and defects are recorded to allow repairs to be scheduled. However, problems arising between each survey can only be identified if someone notices them and reports them.

If the Council do not know about a pothole problem then they can’t fill it in! So if you know of a problem – report it!

There are many ways to report problems including using two successful web services: FixMyStreet and FillThatHole.org.UK are easy to use and report problems. They rely on using post-code or mapping programmes to locate your problem. Both services submit reports directly to responsible local councils who have to respond to public reports within a specified amount of time – usually within 10 working days.

You can also report a problem directly to the East Riding Council.

So what is considered to be an “urgent” pothole problem? The Council has this to say on its website:

It is difficult to precisely define criteria. A good guideline is that a pothole will be considered to be dangerous if it is more than 40mm deep on a main road.”

….That’s just over 1.5 inches deep.

Are you aware of any potholes in Hedon and area that need reporting?

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Posted in East Yorkshire UK, Hedon

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