General News
19 December, 2024
When Council won’t act...
After a heavy shower of leaves and several storms of rain created a hazard on King Street at Clifton, calls on the Regional Council to take some urgent action failed, so two locals decided they would come to the rescue...
The old bottle tree near the Clifton Jam Factory has been losing a significant amount of leaves during the past few weeks and these have been blocking the gutter along the western side of King Street.
After heavy rain, the usual “lake” formed in the gutter between the former newsagency and the Jam Factory.
The leaves remained in the gutter until a local resident, Wendy Glasheen, shifted a large quantity onto the footpath to let the water run away.
Apparently a Council contractor also removed some of the leaves onto the garden bed around the bottle tree, but didn’t remove any of the leaf matter away from the area.
As the week drew on and Saturday’s Christmas Markets loomed, several local business people and former Regional Councillor, Anne Glasheen submitted complaints asking that the leaves be removed to ensure the safety of market stallholders and patrons.
Each complainant was told that it could take up to ten days for action to be taken.
Frustrated, the two local ladies, Anne Glasheen and her sister-in-law Wendy decided to take matters into their own hands and, armed with a trailer, a ute, lawn rakes
and a leaf blower, rounded up the leaves and carted them away on Friday morning.
A number of passers-by complimented the clean-up team but also had a few words to say about the
service - or lack thereof - Clifton is receiving from Toowoomba Regional Council, reflecting on the days when a local crew would have been on the scene far more quickly
when Clifton Shire Council existed.
The problem of the leaves falling and blocking the gutter, creating the extended “lake” has been around for many years.
Council has undertaken some improvement work to allow water to pass
more freely, but unless the leaves are regularly cleared, the problem will never go away.
One can’t help but wonder how long it would take this many leaves to be cleared from one of the main business streets in Toowoomba - our guess is it would be a lot shorter than ten days!
