Concerns remain on clutter and rubbish

At Monday night’s meeting of North Sunderland Parish Council, members heard about an issue with the bins in the village centre on the Saturday of the bank holiday weekend.

Coun Mick McCarthy explained that complaints were received from a business owner after the bins weren’t emptied on the Saturday morning.

Coun McCarthy, county councillor John Woodman and staff from Pinnacles ended up emptying and collecting litter into bin bags to deal with the issue before it became even worse.

The county council was alerted and someone did come down to empty the bins in the late afternoon.

However, Coun Woodman did explain that this problem was slightly different to the overall issue of whether the bins are emptied often enough as it only arose because someone didn’t turn up for work.

He added that the county council had allocated extra resources for the bank holiday weekend so that there would be two collections per day, rather than one, which is what happened on the Sunday and Monday.

Meanwhile, members also discussed A-boards, which they feel are at an unacceptable level in Seahouses in terms of the number of advertising boards blocking the pavements.

Coun Sylvia Hillan related how difficult it can be to get up and down Main Street in a wheelchair.

It comes as Northumberland County Council is consulting on a proposed unauthorised obstructions enforcement policy to ensure there are consistent rules which can be enforced across the county.

Parish councillors were keen for enforcement action to start as soon as possible, but made no comments about whether or not the county council’s proposed policy was acceptable.