2007/07/14 & 2007/08/15

39: Dig and Run A bunch of cowboys turned up in the middle of July, dug vast trenches all over the park for new gas pipes and then disappeared. They also dug big holes in the road and abandoned them. Like the job in the centre of the village; the messing about with the pavement and moving the crossing; this looks like another week's work with 2 months' inconvenience. A month later, one of the flower beds had been restored but the swarm of barriers remained in the stretch of grass behind the bench, which is normally flooded when it rains.

2007/08/29

40: No Sense of Urgency The cowboys finally vacated the park, leaving behind some huge scars. But note the large collection of blue barriers still in place on Sandy Lane. The excavations extended through the park to Compstall road, producing a small hole on the park side of the road and a vast excavation on the south side of the road (see picture below). The smaller hole disappeared on August 30th but the vast one shows no signs of going. The invisible excavators have to service this excavation regularly, as the local drunks & vandals keep shoving the barriers into the hole.

2008/02/19

41: The £30,000 Drainage project The council has finally found some money to do something about the flooding problem in Romiley Park. The job is expected to last six weeks. Curiously, chopping down trees and bushes seems to figure heavily in the plan. With barricades on either access route, the park is now off limits to everyone but the contractors.

2008/04/23

42: No Sense of Urgency The council's cowboys wrecked the park and then just disappeared. Nothing at all happened there for weeks and weeks, and the six-week job duration has long expired. It looks like the cowboys have now got round to preparing the paths for a coating of tarmac. With any luck, Romiley residents might get back into the park before winter sets in, but no one is too optimistic!

2008/06/15 & 2008/07/27

43: The Romiley Bomb Site The 6-week job of redoing the drainage in Romiley Park took a modest 17 weeks to complete and left the park, especially the centre feature, looking like a training ground for tanks, which has been abandoned completely by Stockport Council.    In fact, residents are not even sure if the park is open officially as the barriers on the paths were just tossed to one side rather than collected, and the 'reopening' could have been just the work of weekend yobs looking for somewhere to sit while consuming carry-outs. Six weeks later, the park looks almost respectable again; but the untouched state of the centre feature, and the vanished flower beds, proves that the the decoration budget has been spent on something else.

2008/07/27

44: The Pavement of Death A vast amount of money has gone on replacing the lethal pavement at the centre of the village. Probably because the council's compensation budget was being strained by damaged citizens, who had made a claim after tripping up. The new pavement looks great right after laying. But it has a hidden flaw. When it rains, it becomes as slippery as hell.    So the number of compensation claims is likely to remain high. And when it freezes over in winter, we may well have councillors dashing into hiding to escape corporate manslaughter charges when someone slides off the pavement of death and under a bus!

Created for Romiley Arts Federation by HTSP Web Division. © RAF, 2008.