Norwich city’s streets need a big spring clean

Bin at junction in London Street. Photo: Vicky Manthorpe. (Image: Vicky Manthorpe)

It was essential to the maintenance of a healthy environment that carpets were beaten and cupboards turned out. It was also important to family pride to have a clean home. Perhaps our homes are always clean with the benefit of vacuum cleaners, steam cleaners and washing machines?

Nevertheless, spring cleaning still makes some sense: getting to the grime behind the fridge and the dust under the sofa and just simply taking stock of the overall impression. Especially if visitors are expected.

The civic environment is not so different. It's worth taking a look around the city centre not just for ourselves, but because the tourist season is approaching very fast.

I've noticed the City Guides are getting out and about already with their bands of sightseers and some of them have brought to my attention the less than pristine state of our historic streets.

Exchange Street patching. Photo: Vicky Manthorpe. (Image: Vicky Manthorpe)

There's been quite a bit of work digging up roads for utility maintenance over the winter, leaving lines and patches of tar and gravel where there should have been paving stones. Fortunately the council seems to be dealing with these now.

However, there is still some very noticeable patching of long-standing, which mars the view in Bedford Street and Exchange Street.

Chewing gum flattened into the pavements seems to be ubiquitous – and very unsightly. Cigarette butts – not flattened into the pavement, but scuffling about are another sign of poor cleaning. I was under the impression that dropping cigarette butts was illegal.

We seem also to be suffering from a new outburst of graffiti.

Bollards at the top of Bedford Street. Photo: Vicky Manthorpe. (Image: Vicky Manthorpe)

Graffiti comes in waves, but the more it is tolerated the more it thrives. Until the recession, the city's Graff-off service dealt with all reported cases fairly rapidly but now, unless the graffiti is offensive or racist, property owners must clean the walls themselves. That seems fair enough except, of course, owners are sometimes big companies, absentee landlords or utility companies, so the mess can stick around for ages. We need a quick solution to this problem. I see that London has developed a Love the Square Mile app to report graffiti. Do we need a Norwich city centre app?

The graffiti taggers also seem to be keen on despoiling our lovely sculptured bollards and cast-iron rubbish bins – some of the really good street furniture which does Norwich credit. These surely are the responsibility of the city council and it would be nice to have zero-tolerance on trashing them.

I notice the bins and bollards on St Peter's Street, close to City Hall, are newly-painted. This standard should surely be in force for the whole of the city centre.

Lastly, the St Stephen's underpass continues to be a disgrace; poorly maintained and continually vandalised by the graffiti brigade.

I know there have been times when children's paintings have adorned the walls.

There seems to be a rash of poetry on one section at the minute, which while obviously a creative effort, doesn't enhance the walls visually. Mostly there is just very garish and rough graffiti.

Everything about the underpass is creepy – but even so it is very well used as the best way of crossing the roundabout. Being so close to the bus station and a multi-storey parking facility, this is going to be some people's first experience of Norwich as they trudge towards intu Chapelfield.

St Stephen's is the main entrance way to Norwich from London. Surely the big merchants, the bus companies, the banks and insurance companies on St Stephen's could get together with the city council and propose a new decorative scheme for the walls and help pay for its maintenance.

Come on Aviva – lead the way!