what is going on in popley

[popleyoldcodger]

we recived cards to fill in and send back to the council on what we feel is needed on the poets, then last week a meeting to talk about a residents association, dont get me wrong but i have been asking for a residents club for years now but keep getting fobed off with they will not put one on popley poets as popley have enough of these community centres. yes they do but not on the poets, lets say i want to go to popley fields club by the bus thats fine but to get back home i would need to go into town and then get a bus back. As for a residents association this is a load of P.R when the elections are over they will yet again leave the poets high and dry. they said what would you like to see the main thing is that council and county get off their back sides and come to the poets, i have invited them to come and i will take them round. i asked for a small pay area in the dell only to be told first the materials were no good (that was rubbish) then the next time of asking it would cost £200,000 rubbish as most of the work would have been done free by the contactors building on the regeneration site. Then we are told the next time we can not do it as you have enough play areas, we have one that the little ones can play in and they cant do that because it is so dangerous with glass and rubbish all over the place. then the next thing was kids could run into the road, if they were to have listerned to the way it was going to be done a small fence could have been put along this strech of the road to stop them. but to again beat this they say it is to close to the houses it is no nearer than the other play area in fact it might be a bit further away from the and as kids play there now what they are saying again is rubbish. it all boils down to who shouts the most gets the cash, and who knows who. Cant they understand that kids have played in this area ever since the estate was built and the kids have run into the road after a ball for years. so in other words the answer would be NO. no matter what you try to do to help the community. they may knock on doors saying we will do this and that but in truth they will do sod all for the run down estate that it is now, my wife pointed this out the other day when she said it has gone down the pan if the council can not bother with the poets then so the resident will not care for it, we will still see dirt every place you look. i did say on another site what it looked like but i leave it to you to work out with S hole.

[Xtro]

I agree with much of what you say, but a couple of observations:

1. Who creates the mess you describe? It's not the council, but a minority of residents themselves who live on the estate. There is nothing to stop concerned residents clearing up the mess themselves - why wait for the council (who I agree are useless most of the time). People moan but don't do anything themselves - they always expect someone else to do something.

2. The estate still has Chineham Park which also has a play area. However, the park and the play area are very underused IMO. I have seen the park virtually deserted on sunny days during weekends and school holidays. A lot of kids spend a lot less time outside these days and are far less active (which is why more of them are getting obese) spending a lot of time on the internet and computer games, or they are taken everywhere by car.