Wednesday, 13 January 2010

Co-delivery in freezing conditions

In this time of big freeze, many people have had to park their cars away from their homes, if they live on ungritted side streets and/or their street is on an incline.

This can lead to the scenario I witnessed in a nearby street on Sunday morning, of at least thirty residents out with their shovels chipping away at the ice to make the road useable. The scene from the foot of the hill was worthy of Breughel. I stopped to note all the conversations that were taking place: no doubt there's plenty of new social capital available to people now.

By contrast, here's another local tale, of a resident who went out to clear her stretch of the road, shovelling and chipping away at the stubborn ice. A neighbour appeared and said, 'are you working for the council now then?'

The traditional passive model of service expectation dies hard, but I suspect its demise will accelerate in the coming big spending freeze.

13 Jan 2010 09:44:31 | Governance and participation, Neighbourhood relations, Social capital, Vignettes

2 Comments

Similar ambiguous story down in Sarf London. Me, shovel in hand, while Neighbour A is on broom detail. Neighbour B approaches: "Oh,it's you two. Just saw the lady from two doors down [Neighbour C] at the shop, all excited saying to me there's two men in the street clearing the ice from the whole street [slight exaggeration]. I say - do you think it was the council? She says - no can't be, that lot would never come out on a Saturday, too much like hard work. I said to her - good point! Do you want a cup of tea?"

Posted by: Ben Lee | Monday, 18 January 2010 at 22:59

Gabriel Chanan sent me this wry little story to add to the mix:
'We live close to the border of our LA, Bracknell, with Windsor and Maidenhead. W&M notoriously neglect the outer reaches of their wierdly shaped borough. The boundary runs down the middle of New Road, a long road parallel to ours. Bracknell gritted their side of the road, W & M didn't grit theirs. So all the people on the Bracknell side were able to get out, go to work and shop, and the people on the W&M side were stuck for a week. Who says local authorities don't make a difference?'

Posted by: Kevin | Tuesday, 19 January 2010 at 17:19

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