Ask not what Cheltenham can do for you, but what you can do for Cheltenham.
With apologies to JFK, it’s a phrase which sums up the spirit our community. From the Friends of Sandford Park to FOMBAG in Montpellier to Friends of Pittville and the Cheltenham Civic Society, volunteer associations across our town give up their time for free to make Cheltenham a better place for all.
I admire them hugely, not least because their members are doers. They are people who don’t simply complain about problems, but roll up their sleeves and fix them.
So it has been wonderful to draw on this spirit for my campaign to tackle the surge of weeds and graffiti grot spots. The situation in Cheltenham is deplorable and the neglect even led the Civic Society to brand the town centre a ‘dump’. Whilst I wouldn’t go that far, the Society is absolutely right that more must be done to get the basics right, particularly road sweeping and removing graffiti tags.
That’s why I’ve been out and about with volunteers since the start of the year. We’ve been focusing initially on tackling road junctions which haven’t been swept. As well as making the town look desultory and run down, the waste clogs up the drains.
At Hales Road/Hewlett Road, we used spades, brooms and stiff brushes to remove over 50kg of mud and debris which had accumulated in the gutter. At the junction opposite the Brewery by the NCP, volunteers removed bags of litter and knee-high weeds. We’ve swept the well-used pedestrian crossing on the ring road near the Royal Mail sorting office. And we’ve stripped out weeds left to grow in the Suffolks near the Bath Road junction.
We are determined to go further. I’ve already spoken to Police and Crime Commissioner Chris Nelson about working with Probation to get more offenders doing their community payback in Cheltenham.
They should be out there in our community, repaying their debt to society. At the same time they will benefit from a sense of achievement as grot spots are cleared and made to look clean and tidy again.
Thank you so much for all your support. I’ve been so grateful for the many messages backing the campaign. It confirms what I long suspected. We have a deep sense of pride in Cheltenham – and an army of people prepared to match words with action.