According to the article on page 3 of the JEP on Friday 3rd April, I think that 'Town businesses could pick up the bill for the new St Helier recycling scheme'. Now why would I want to do that? How could that possibly strike anyone as fair? Actually the rest of the article makes the point that we are only considering charging businesses for EXTRA collections. In other words, everyone who pays rates is entitled to go on receiving their weekly refuse collection, which is going to include a collection of recyclables like paper, tins, plastic bottles and glass, but if you run a business that generates a load of refuse on a daily basis you will have to pay for the extra collections.
The article also points out that the new recycling scheme is going to be put to a Parish Assembly for approval, once the staff involved in operating it are fully signed up to the scheme, and once the parishioners have been consulted about the scheme. So if businesses object to paying any for the extra refuse collections they can simply turn up to the meeting and vote against it. Mind you, they will have to have a pretty good argument against paying for extra services, as if they don't pay for them everyone else will!
Friday, April 3, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
The Wrong Street
Someone wrote to me about illegal parking in St James Street, or so I thought: St. James Street is really busy and is part of the Ring Road, so I asked that a letter be sent to the premises in the street concerned to advise them that a zero tolerance approach would be taken to illegal parking, and in due course a meeting with a delegation representing businesses in the street appeared in my diary.
I thought something was amiss when they arrived as the group included people I knew who run businesses in a different part of town, and when they circulated photographs of commercial vehicles unloading in James Street I realised that at my request the traffic wardens aka parking control officers were blitzing the wrong street – St. James Street goes past the former St. James Church between the Bacchus and Admiral pubs; James Street links the Nelson Street car park with Burrard Street and is effectively a cul-de-sac. James Street currently has yellow lines prohibiting parking on both sides, but the many businesses in the street need to be able to have deliveries, so why on earth did I want to adopt a zero tolerance approach to parking?
Good question – I didn’t. I apologised for the case of mistaken identity and a solution to the problem was quickly found, as not only did I propose to replace the yellow lines with some marked unloading bays, but issues like the condition of the pavements, the potential for some al fresco areas and traffic calming were all agreed as needing the Parish’s attention.
Subsquently I’ve found out that I’m not the only person to have been confused by these street names. The landlord of the St. James Wine Bar (confusingly situated not in St. James Street but the other one) regularly gets mail sent to an address across town, and other people have reported to me that it’s a confusing situation.
By coincidence I had a letter recently from the head of the Catholic Church asking why the Parish had not considered renaming a Parish road to reflect the fact that for more than half a century the Portuguese community has been settled in Jersey – James Street seems to me to be eminently suitable:
How does Rua da Madeira sound?
I thought something was amiss when they arrived as the group included people I knew who run businesses in a different part of town, and when they circulated photographs of commercial vehicles unloading in James Street I realised that at my request the traffic wardens aka parking control officers were blitzing the wrong street – St. James Street goes past the former St. James Church between the Bacchus and Admiral pubs; James Street links the Nelson Street car park with Burrard Street and is effectively a cul-de-sac. James Street currently has yellow lines prohibiting parking on both sides, but the many businesses in the street need to be able to have deliveries, so why on earth did I want to adopt a zero tolerance approach to parking?
Good question – I didn’t. I apologised for the case of mistaken identity and a solution to the problem was quickly found, as not only did I propose to replace the yellow lines with some marked unloading bays, but issues like the condition of the pavements, the potential for some al fresco areas and traffic calming were all agreed as needing the Parish’s attention.
Subsquently I’ve found out that I’m not the only person to have been confused by these street names. The landlord of the St. James Wine Bar (confusingly situated not in St. James Street but the other one) regularly gets mail sent to an address across town, and other people have reported to me that it’s a confusing situation.
By coincidence I had a letter recently from the head of the Catholic Church asking why the Parish had not considered renaming a Parish road to reflect the fact that for more than half a century the Portuguese community has been settled in Jersey – James Street seems to me to be eminently suitable:
How does Rua da Madeira sound?
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