Leaving the dealers to deal in peace

In a previous post, A different view of graftti, I took issue with Martin Jennings’ appreciation of the grafitti on Aristotle Lane railway bridge. I found no beauty in it and saw it as both a complement to the more official forms of aesthetic vandalism visible from the bridge and as a symptom of the neglect endemic in Oxford. I ended by suggesting that worse things than grafitti flourished when the causes and the visible evidence of the grafitti were untouched.

Graffiti is actually worse as a symptom of neglect than the unemptied bins, the weed-filled gutters and the blocked drains. They merely indicate that nobody in authority bothers – councillors do not believe that their re-election will turn on such things, and local authority officers do not, for the most part, care about very much beyond their pay and pensions and whether the equalities and discrimination handbooks are up to date.

A different view of grafitti

I was about to publish one of my periodic comments on the prevalence of graffiti in my part of North Oxford and at the failure by both Oxford City Council and the police to do anything either to prevent it or to clear it up.

My most recent post was in April (see Oxford graffiti gets worse) and concerned, as before, the track leading to Port Meadow and the bridge across the railway. I was then (and remained) angry that the dullards of Oxford City Council had boasted of a project to clear graffiti quickly but had in fact merely sprayed paint over some of, thus permanently ruining decent brickwork and providing the yobbos with a blank canvas. I suggested that they just left it alone until someone more active, caring and competent took over the job.

My update post has been pre-empted by a comment from a reader which to not be ignored even if I do not agree with what he says. His comment (published, unusually for me, in full) is as follows:

Oxford grafitti gets worse

I wrote a few weeks ago about Oxford City Council’s botched attempt to attend to the grafitti which plagues the city (Grafitti remedy worse than the grafitti). I suggested that if the best they could do was to splodge green paint over the mess, then all they were doing was providing a blank canvas for the next load of grafitti.

My post showed the brickwork at the Port Meadow end of Aristotle Lane railway bridge. Some new grafitti had already been added. This is what it looks like now.

Hit or miss the Labour candidate

I had a printed note on yellow paper through the door a few days ago. It was from Sue Ledwith, apparently the Labour candidate in North Ward. Perhaps printing her stuff on Lib Dem yellow is a cunning way to confuse the voters and pick up votes meant for someone else.

“Sorry we missed you”, it said. The last time I saw Sue Ledwith, I nearly hit her, so it as well that I missed her this time.

£13 million less to waste on roads in 2008

The Government has cut £13 million from the money which Oxfordshire County Council hoped to spend on transport schemes. In general one hopes for more rather than less to be diverted to one’s region by way of reciprocity for the huge sums one pays in tax, but this cut does at least spare us the sight of our money being thrown away before our eyes.

Yet another try for a skate board area

A third attempt to build a skate board park in North Oxford has apparently been all but beaten off. Two have already been repelled from Aristotle Lane Recreation Ground, between Kingston Road and Waterside. This one was actually planned for Waterside itself, at the end of Walton Well Road on a patch of rough ground known, with revolting tweeness, as The Spinney.

It was apparently promoted by Councillor Clark Brundin and Councillor Alan Armitage fuelled respectively (I would guess) by naivety and ambition. This time around, the council officers are not backing the idea – a whipped cur shuns the fire or whatever the expression is. Even council officers can get a message if you kick them hard enough – but not, apparently, some of the councillors.The first skate area was plotted between Councillor Jim Campbell and an official in the Parks department known locally as Dim Cow. It killed Jim Campbell’s reputation – someone told me, I hope correctly, that he was a “broken man” when the diggers destroyed his creation in March 2004 with £50,000 wasted.

Grafitti remedy worse than the grafitti

Slopping green paint over graffiti ruins the brickwork permanently. Leave the graffiti there until the day when we have competent people in charge who will address the real problem, not just paint over it to meet their targets.

The principle was a good one. Oxford City Council (presumably the dreaded and dreadful City Works) announced in October 2007 that it would tackle graffiti and similar visual eyesores. Residents were encouraged to send in photographs and the council committed to deal with obscene and racist graffiti within one working day and other graffiti within 14 working days.

The photographs go up on the council’s web site along with a statement as to when it was or will be fixed. This splendid commitment (I mean that – this is in theory how local government should work) was coupled with a statement that a major culprit in North Oxford had been apprehended by Mr Plod on one of his rare visits to the area.

Since then, the amount of graffiti near my house has doubled and the council’s remedy – splashing green paint over the mess – is not only a cure worse than the problem but provides a splendid canvas for the next spate.

Nude man joins the crowds in Aristotle Lane

At about 2:00 am on Saturday morning, a naked man strolled across the canal bridge in Aristotle Lane. He was middle-aged and on the large side. My reporter tells me that he appeared to show no concern either at the apparent incongruity of this or at the cold.

It is quite a busy place at night, Aristotle Lane. There are the young vandals who come and add a bit more graffiti every night. Down the end of the lane, near the railway line, are the drug dealers whose satisfied customers wander down to the southern end of Waterside for their relaxed smoke or sniff or whatever it is. Our nocturnal naturist was carrying neither spray can nor cash and was presumably not on his way to join either of Aristotle Lane’s regular visiting teams. It may be, of course, that his uninhibited state was due to an earlier visit to the dealers and that he was off to get a paint job from the graffiti artists.

Like the dealers and the vandals, he was quite safe from interruption by the police. Oxford’s finest have better things to do than worry about drugs, vandalism or sex perverts or any of the other things which local policing used to prevent. If anyone knows what it is which occupies their time, perhaps you would share it with us.

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Emptying some bins in Oxford

I was much impressed to see an Oxford City Council van full of bin bags on Sunday morning outside the Anchor in Hayfield Road, particularly as I had just walked past two overflowing bins in Aristotle Lane rec.

I watched it turn, backwards and forwards as one has to now at the end of Aristotle Lane, thanks to the mess of bollards and posts which Oxfordshire County Council has dumped there (I often wonder how much pollution that causes) and I wondered idly if it would take the easy route into Aristotle Lane up the wrong side of the bollards.

No. It did not go up Aristotle Lane at all, but just drove off. So, this council, which is always nagging us about vehicle pollution and fining us for litter offences, drives a bin van within 40 yards of two overflowing bins and drives off without collecting the rubbish. The bins remained full all through Sunday and were still overflowing on Monday morning.

It is probably not the fault of the drivers who, I imagine, have to follow a rota drawn up by some unthinking wally in the council offices. It seems nonsense to me. Can anyone offer a rational explanation?

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Expect more Highways junk at Aristotle Lane

My post Come to see how not to do it at Aristotle Lane is answered by a reader who saw a similar group of local authority types standing at the end of Aristotle Lane on a different occasion last week. Like me, he fears another round of expensive unnecessary works here.

The usual pattern is that someone complains that her little boy is due to start at the school next year and might be afraid of the possibility that he might come within yards of being run over if he ran into the road when a car was anywhere near. She is joined by that regiment of North Oxford busybodies who forever think that “something must be done”. We pay all that money in Council Tax, they say, oblivious to the fact that if less money was wasted on unnecessary road works the Council Tax might actually go down.

Come to see how not to do it at Aristotle Lane

I came across this little party yesterday afternoon, standing amongst the 15 pillars, posts and other clutter which Oxfordshire County Council has dumped at the end of Aristotle Lane.

Small groups hanging around in Aristotle Lane are usually waiting for their dealer to arrive, but not generally at school-out time, not at the primary school anyway. They look like local authority employees, I decided – that look of tired-biscuits-left-on-a-dusty-shelf which identifies those who trudge the corridors of councils everywhere.

Rubbish and Graffiti by the Oxford Canal

The photograph below encapsulates quite a lot of Oxford’s neglect in one go.

We see a hideous bridge across the Oxford Canal. It is covered in graffiti. Next to it is an overflowing bin. On it are two traffic signs. All around are weeds. The bridge we are stuck with, this generation’s blight on the area for a century or more. The others could be fixed tomorrow with no great application of thought or money.

The story of the bridge, which lies at the end of old Frenchay Road and runs across to the Berkeley Homes Waterways estate, is told in a post called A bridge too big on the Oxford Canal. This post deals with the bin, the graffiti and the notices.

A bridge too big on the Oxford Canal

The photographs show the bridge which connects Berkeley Homes’ Waterways site with North Oxford at the western end of Frenchay Road.

There used to be a swing bridge here, Oxford Canal Bridge No 239, which lay a little south of the present bridge – it pre-dated the building of Frenchay Road and abutted the end of the houses in Hayfield Road in what now is a dead piece of weed-filled ground.

Aristotle Lane Rec saved from council officer

I gather that Oxford’s North Area Committee took little time to see off a council officer’s plan to dump a tarmac skate area on Aristotle Lane Recreation Ground. See the full thread of articles about it here.

The councillors were all deeply pissed off to find that a contentious and expensive proposal had been slipped into the budget for Rec improvements without any prior warning and, indeed, without any supporting argument in the officer’s report. Even those who still hanker for a hard surface in place of the grass voted against the proposal because of the manner in which it was presented.

Another go at wrecking the Rec

Following the fiasco of the skate area which was erected and as quickly closed down at Aristotle Lane Recreation Ground (see Wrecking the Rec), Oxford City Council conducted a further survey as to what local people wanted for the Rec. Most wanted the same as they had wanted originally – for the field to be drained, some benches and some kick-about goals. The drainage was estimated to cost abut £50,000 (i.e. the same as had been thrown away on the skate area). Benches cost about £300 each, as does a kickabout goal.

Wrecking the Rec

Aristotle Lane Recreation Ground is a pretty little rectangle of grass and trees by the Oxford Canal in North Oxford. More than 20 years ago, I pushed a pram round it. As my children grew up, we played football and cricket there and threw Frisbees. Now my children go there with guitars and girls.

Aristotle Lane Rec threatened again

There is a new proposal to build a hard street sports area on Aristotle Lane Recreation Ground. It is concealed within a report to the North Area Committee which is due to be considered on Thursday 5 July at Diamond Place Community Centre in Summertown at 6:30 pm.

Although the provision of a street sports area is the biggest single expense listed in the report (at £47,000) it is not specifically referred to in the body of the report, save for a vague reference to a “hard standing area”. Why does the report’s author conceal this part of the proposal?

Aristotle Lane Graffiti

Aristotle Lane runs out westward from North Oxford. Once it has passed the new houses, the school and the Recreation Ground, it becomes a pleasant track up over the railway and down to Port Meadow. It is not yet manicured and suburbanised in standard local authority style, though that is creeping towards it.

It is marred by one thing – graffiti. The first picture shows the wall to the south of the track. The city council did come and clear the graffiti off it about 18 months or so ago.

They made a good job of it and it stayed clear for a long time. That was at the height of a concerted effort by the council and police to eradicate both the graffiti and the perpetrators.

There are two conflicting views on the removal of graffiti. One is that a clear wall is an invitation to the “artists” to start again on a conveniently blank canvas. The other is that if the authorities leave a place to decline it will decline.

Both are true up to a point. I favour the second view – if vandals see that no-one cares, then a spiral begins. A dropped can leads to a defaced wall and so on to a burnt-out car.

The missing link is policing. I have seen an unsolicited policeman here once or twice (“unsolicited” meaning that he was passing by rather than that he had come out in response to a call) but this sort of old-fashioned street policing wins no promotions compared with the assiduous filling-in of forms and other vital tasks undertaken by Oxford’s finest.

The yoofs know that the chance of being caught is minimal and that not much will happen to them if they are caught. Furthermore, they can see that their masterpieces will endure for ever since no-one will bother to remove them.

The second photograph is taken a few yards further west, on the footbridge over the railway line. It was taken in June 2006. It looks much the same now, but worse.

The black splodges were put there in the previous year. Two men from City Works turned up with paint and brushes and set to work. I speak figuratively – they did not work by any standard recognisable in the private sector but did the public sector equivalent – two part-days of unsupervised lethargy.

The result, as you can see, looks like a badly-decorated Q-Ship. This was not a job which needed much effort, money or skill. No one has bothered to come back and finish the job.

It is possible that there is a demarcation problem here – that the bridge actually belongs to Network Rail and that Oxford City Council is unwilling to shoulder either the expense of painting or the risk that they will thereby be taken to assume responsibility for the structure. Surely two lots of even the dimmest pen-pushers can sort this sort of thing out.

Meanwhile, the graffiti spreads – it goes on over the bridge and down underneath it. I walk here every day, and realised recently that I had stopped noticing it. I had come to accept that this is how it is in Oxford now.

Meanwhile, I have had a Council Tax demand for more than £2,000 and a sticker on my dustbin whining that I had put the wrong kind of rubbish in one of their little boxes.

This is part of an occasional series called Oxford Neglect which catalogues instances of casual neglect, mainly on the part of Oxford City Council, which lead to the general air of decline which pervades the place. This is distinct from the positive acts of institutional vandalism and contrasts with both the innate beauty of the inherited city and the grandiose plans for its future.