Mitton Park Residents' Meeting

So another Mitton Park Residents' Association Meeting last Friday with apparently a few more people attending then previously, for reasons I'll get back to.

The amusement I suppressed from mentioning in an earlier entry was to do with the play area. This has been set as to be sited behind the cottages next to the river and marsh; which may be considered hardly ideal a fact brought up by the meeting of high muck-a-mucks. One of them suggested this patch of ground at the end of Millfield Road next to the Leapgate Line.

"But that's where you want to run the by-pass through. What happens when that starts to be done?"
"Then we'll move it to the original site."

Yes folks this is the critical thinking you can expect from our leaders - build a play area at great expense in a different area in the full knowledge that at some point in the future you'll be moving it over to the originally designated site.

It seems the play-area was the main bone of contention that was being chewed on by all these extra people who all suddenly wanted to pay their dues and become members.

It seems the area had been covered with some flora deemed dangerous/hazardous so the site was cleared and a membrane put down. Now what I've been told was that someone who lives close by has used a JCB to clear their site and in the process has a) torn some of the membrane and more importantly b) knocked down some conservation order trees.

Not that anyone cares that they may have had a conservation order on them, more along the lines that now the trees are no longer there the proposed play area will become the dominant view for the houses sited next to it.

Mention was also made about how close to the Marsh it was; oo let's site it somewhere else.. any suggestions? It was also asked by the council if it required parking places, a categorical no from the Chairman as ratified by the association; although apparently some newbie couldn't get that through their thick head and kept objecting to having parking places there. Again a point to make is that this is designed as a local play area for local children (League of Gentlemen aside) so what would be the need for parking and why would anyone even ask?

Another newbie had been asking around local estate agents and has been told that the state of the roads means the properties are around £20k less then they should be. Yes if you'd attended any of the other meetings you'd know this was being worked on.

No-one seemed to know much about the apparent slide of the gardens down a slope although the interesting question was raised about who was responsible. The builder is for 5 years, except no-one knows when that started, after that though has been left in the air.

The topic of ownership/responsibility brings two further points of interest. The first regards the tipping at the end of Millfield Road 'Could we have some barriers please?' 'Well who owns the land?' Ummm. Remember this is where they wanted to put the play-area until it needed to be moved so was a doubly dumb thought.

The second point regards part of Timber Lane and the high possibility that the Highways Agency still owns the land. This would be the land now covered by houses and gardens.

So much of this would have been dealt with and cleared up if there had been a County Enforcement officer on site (as there should have been) except they were ill and as a result nothing was done and they simply 'got on with it'.

Interesting - the planning officer for Wyre Forest goes on maternity and they get in a consultant firm for the interim, County Councils Enforcement officer goes ill and... nothing. Wow I'm actually being impressed by our District Council in comparison to our County one; hardly a taxing standard though.