Pensioner’s brush with bureaucracy

10:00am Tuesday 12th August 2008

Comments (9)   Have your say »

A PENSIONER has hit out at his local council after a large road sweeper's broom was dumped outside his Weymouth home for nearly a fortnight.

Eric Crouch, 75, made several calls to Weymouth and Portland Borough Council to ask them to remove the broom and was promised several days ago it would be picked up.

It was finally retrieved yesterday lunchtime, after the Echo made enquiries with the council.

The brush was left in the road in front of Mr Crouch's house in Kenmoor Close, Preston, following a visit by a motorised road sweeper on July 29.

He said: "We have got a parking bay outside and when we had some people come to visit they couldn't park there as it was blocked by a very large broom. They thought we were saving the space for someone.

"We had seen the road sweeper coming round that morning and knew it must have been left by him, it couldn't have been anyone else.

"The driver probably didn't realise till he got back and then thought I'll just go to the store and get another broom'."

Mr Crouch tried to contact the council's highways department and had to leave a message, then last week he phoned again and left another message.

This time he received a response from the council's customer services department promising someone would come and collect the broom. However, five days later the broom was still sitting outside, although Mr Crouch had moved it off the road.

He said: "It's just a waste, I know it's only a broom but it must cost quite a few pounds.

"If we had a car big enough we would have taken it down to the council and dumped it in their back yard.

"After nearly two weeks it was removed at lunchtime. Someone just came and took it away, nobody has communicated anything to me at all."

Cllr Doug Hollings, the council's environment spokesman, said "We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused the couple. I am pleased that the broom has now been removed and I will be looking into the circumstances of why it was not removed sooner".