Saturday 23 July 2016

Cutting verges and shredding litter

For several weeks the verges of the guided busway have been looking fantastic, with a fine show of wild flowers. But it seems the Cambridgeshire County Council is now starting to trim the verges.

This blog has been contacted by Paul Verbinnen who writes about 'the wide scale destruction of the wildflowers alongside the Busway between Orchard Park and Oakington.

He says:
I understand that the Busway requires maintenance and wholeheartedly wish for more regular and meaningful maintenance, especially where the solar lights are obscured and the surface is breaking up. But it seems to me that over the last two days, 21st & 22nd July, unnecessary and excessive cutting has taken place. Whole stands of beautiful wild flowers have been destroyed and debris littered across the maintenance track. At the same time, the litter was not collected and now lies shredded and dispersed with probably ten times as much to pick up now. All in all, it looks dreadful and I’m really annoyed that some insects may have been destroyed too.

It appears that commonsense cutting of the immediate margin bordering the path has been ruled out and the maximum width selected for flailing. At the same time, the private contractors haven’t touched  the trailing brambles or protruding bushes and so the path remains narrowed. It would appear to be gross incompetence on the part of the County Council for doing unnecessary work and omitting the essential trimming. With shards of glass and metal cans now littering the banks it is only a question of time before that makes its way onto the path.
Here are two photos of the shredded litter.


Thursday 7 July 2016

Another accident - Trumpington again

Local media are reporting another accident this morning, between Trumpington and the Park & Ride on a single-decker Route A service. The bus was heading towards the Park & Ride, and had no passengers at the time. The driver is reported to have escaped uninjured.

More on this story from the BBC and Cambridge News (the latter includes a number of photos).

Trips, slips, etc.

The Cambridge News has discovered, by means of a Freedom of Information request, that the County Council has received 15 compensation claims since the Busway opened, of which 6 were successful. These six cost a total of £18,700 to settle. Defective paving (by no means unique to the Busway, of course) and an unmarked bollard are amongst the causes of incidents which gave rise to these payments.

The full story is available here.