Leicester - The Real story

Today on Remembrance Day 11th November 2019, St. Matthews Estate is having almost every bush and small tree removed under a 'tidy-up blitz'. We are being subject to this 'blitz' over the next six weeks, and I dread to think how bad things will be by then.  St Matthews lies between 3 major roads and has a problem specifically identified in the LCC AQAP (Air Quality Action Plan) as having high levels of NO2 from this traffic.  This Mayor's initiative has been undertaken with no local consultation and has just been imposed on us by the same people who have been building illegal car parking (no existing planning permission for Kashmir Rd) on the estate. I wonder if there is some collusion between the contractors and the Mayors office. Spending £330,000 on 24 spaces seems to have been a way of funneling money to the Council Highways dept. (and it was only 1 of 3 car parks) Surely it cant cost over £10,000 per space to convert what was already a temporary car park in...

The first question I have is about planning permissions. Let me illustrate. This sign needed planning permission. This carpark didn't. Which one had the biggest effect on local people and their built environment? The same road had two other car parks built on it that also had no planning permission. Check planning applications for Manitoba Rd, St Matthews  here  . These car parks were paid for with money made available to the local tenants association to meet the most pressing demands of their constituency and to improve life on the estate. Remember over half of the population on the estate are children who have no say in the shaping of the environment they are to grow up in.  Let me remind you  Manitoba Rd in 2008 and 2016  It doesn't take a genius to work out which is the best for children, a few trees or a carpark! I will be asking Ms Jean Williams, the Chair of St Matthews Tenants Association how she can justify...

Leicester City Council buys 2300 litres of Roundup (Glycosphate) defoliant every year. (Freedom of Information stat.) . As each litre is sufficient according to the label for a thousand square metres this amounts to 568.34238 acres. or 2.3 square kilometres. Abbey park is 57 acres. So does Leicester City Council defoliate an area of land 10 times the size of the citys biggest park. And in this age of maintaining carbon balance, is it legal?. It is well known fact that removing the surface organic growth decreases the amount of carbon sequestered per metre. When plants are left to grow they capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and over time build up a higher biomass (Roots in the soil, trunks, humus from falling leaves, bacteria, invertebrates and dare I say mammals and birds.) I have asked them not to spray around my house and usually they comply although we had a little accident last year. 6 years ago when they started with the spraying they sprayed nettles which I had growing i...