West Lothian tenants face action to clean up scruffy gardens

Published date14 June 2022
AuthorStuart Sommerville
Publication titleEdinburghLive (Scotland)
The promise came after Labour's Harry Cartmill told the Local Area Committee that the number of overgrown gardens in the town was a sign that "society was de-evolving"

He followed that up this week when the town's Housing Manager, Graeme McKee addressed the latest meeting of the committee.

Joining the committee for the first time were newly elected councillors Labour's Tony Pearson and Pauline Stafford for the SNP.

Councillor Cartmill said: "One of things I noticed throughout the town, especially in Glen Mavis, and up where I live, and that's the amount of gardens in council properties that are unkempt. But there's many beyond that. There's some have rubbish dumps in the gardens, hedges haven't been cut, grass hasn't been cut for years.

"I know it's part of your tenancy agreement that you have to keep gardens tidy. Now that officers are back more or less working as normal I wonder if a focus can be put on this.

"It really brings down the area when you see someone looking after their garden and looking after their property and their neighbour's house is looking literally like a rubbish dump. It really brings down areas. I've had a lot of complaints about it, but I have seen it with my own eyes many times."

He added: "We're not expecting every garden to look like the Beechgrove Garden or some of these shows on TV, but just enough that they would cut the grass, keep the hedges down and certainly don't dump rubbish within the gardens."

Mr McKee said: "I would agree. Not to try and put the blame on COVID for everything but part of the...

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