Tornado update
Dear all
Some of you will have received some of this information already. I apologise for the duplication.
I attach a copy of the most recent council bulletin.
If any of you who cannot read attachments would like a printed copy, please phone me.
I also attach a notice for those who are willing to be street reps to put up in their windows or on notice boards, stuck together as an A3 sheet. Mike Cummins has volunteered for Woodstock Road and Clare Lewis for Birchwood Road. For those who might be interested in serving, the following suggestion is based on a reply I sent to John Newson, following his request for clarification about the rôle of a street rep.
The rôle of a street rep would be to help information flow between Council Departments and local residents, primarily at the moment about issues arising from the tornado but long term on any issues concerning local residents. My view is that the street reps would all be active members of the same Residents Association, thus gaining strength in numbers and
credibility to the Council. With e-mail the Council could copy information both to the Residents Association Chair and all street reps so that street reps could pass the information on immediately without waiting for a meeting. Meetings would be held when there were issues that needed wider discussion or decisions about strategies.
It would be for those involved to chose which Residents Association. There are at least three choices:
- We received an invitation to a meeting next week to create “Anderton Park Residents Association”. From the attached questionnaire its interests appear to predate the tornado. There are no contact details - is this Ted Ryan?.
- Woodstock Residents and Tenants Association still exists, with some money in the bank, so that could be reborn.
- Joining Balsall Heath Forum might give the group more strength.
We need a meeting to decide this - and not at the same time as a BCC meeting on the tornado (The Anderton Park RA meeting is also on August 23rd).
John Newson has also written to several of us with a suggestion that the Health and Safety Executive should be told of our concerns about asbestos.
Our experiences, which follow, may be typical of other residents.
On the Sunday following the tornado, workmen started to demolish our garage, without any warning to us. Howard stopped them as the garage was still full of our possessions. He didn’t think of it at the time, but they started with the roof and were taking no precautions about the corrugated asbestos sheeting.
On Wednesday we had a tree surgeon felling dangerous trees on our property (at huge expense which I hope our insurance will cover) who was anxious about branches falling on the asbestos garage roof, which could have broken the asbestos and thus caused dangerous flying particles.
I managed eventually to get masks from the Portakabin - they took ages to find them, not realising that they had some. I was given one protective suit by someone from Morrisons (I think that is the name of the firm with the vans to take the asbestos away) but there were no gloves available. The tree surgeon used our neighbour’s hose to damp down the garage roof and, as they had masks, the men were happy to do the tree felling. They were not
handling the asbestos - that will be the job of whoever demolishes the garage. I still have the unused protective suit and 2 unused masks.
I think that it is a good idea to get the HSE involved. I also have concerns about scaffolding that does not appear to me to have adequate safety features. For instance the toe board on the scaffolding at the front of our house stops short of the stretch above our front door, which is where I think that it is needed most. I did not spot this before our scaffolders
left yesterday but I will bring it to the attention of anyone who climbs the scaffold. They left no ladders at our house but opposite us unprotected ladders have been left on the scaffold for several days. If the HSE do visit, a scaffold inspection would also be a good idea.
That’s all for now, perhaps I will see you in the park today.
Esther