(Above) Not so Edenic... Eden Road E17 on Saturday afternoon.
(above) Visitors heading from Walthamstow station to the historic village area can pause and relax in these pleasant surroundings on St Mary Road. (Saturday afternoon.)
RUBBISH, RAIN AND EARLY MORNINGS MAKE WALTHAM FOREST'S ROADS CLEAN is the peculiar and baffling headline in the latest issue of the council's free propaganda rag WFM. (Page 14, November 17 issue)
Councillor Bob Belam grumbles that the High Street is "liberally scattered with rubbish dumped by people who couldn't be bothered to put it in a bin." Actually, Bob, people are prepared to use bins but Kier isn't emptying them. I don't believe for a moment that any of the bins in these pics had been emptied at dawn on Saturday and then filled up again before I saw them at mid-day. The filthy condition of local streets can be attributed to the council's £600,000 "efficiency savings", not to a sudden increase in littering by lazy locals. Bob insists in the latest WFM that "our streets are getting cleaner". That's not what residents across a broad swathe of the borough tell me. And I'm always surprised by how many other people have also seen rats scampering around residential streets in the daytime.
(below) Westbury Road E17, just off the High Street
(below) Cleveland Park Avenue E17 (note overflowing litter bin in the background)
(below) corner of Hatherley Road E17 and Westbury Road
