Dear Messenger

Dear Messenger,

I am wondering if you could investigate the process or real criteria for gaining the facelift scheme on your road or street.

Residents of Roe Lane were informed that their houses were included in the approved areas for the scheme. I recently sought confirmation of this and was informed by the council that this was the case, subject to budgets and continued government funding.

Last year the scheme moved to Firs Hill, Firs Hill Road and most of Barnsley Road South and beyond. These are completed.

On contacting the Council to find out why the scheme had bypassed Roe Lane and continued into Firvale, I was informed that the scheme had been brought to Firs Hill Road because of a petition from the residents – I was shocked.

I was also informed that Abbeyfield Road residents were completing a similar petition and the scheme would therefore most likely go there next.

If the process for gaining this scheme were by petition from the residents then the residents of Roe Lane and other areas would have been grateful to have been informed of this.

The criteria for choosing the next road should not be based on who lobbies the council but on the basis of fair and transparent criteria, such as prioritising the area and then completing it rather than doing some and leaving other residents to feel a sense of unfairness.

Other priorities should be homes of elderly residents and disabled people who cannot afford the cost of face lifting their properties, as is the case of some residents in Roe Lane and other areas that appear to have been bypassed.

Can you find out if this is a facelift scheme for our area or if it’s a lottery?

Regards, Mrs F Cotterell

The Messenger approached the Council and received the following response:

“Ideally we would like to be able to facelift the whole area.

However, because of limited funding, we have to have a priority system to determine which streets we facelift so that the work has the most impact and benefit to the area as a whole.

Funding is allocated on a yearly basis, so we cannot plan any further ahead than each year. This year’s funding has been allocated to Nottingham Street, Rock Street, and Andover Street.

Roe Lane is a street we would consider for facelift but we will have to wait and see how much money we are allocated next year, if any, and then spend it according to the priority system.

We welcome the views of people and take them into consideration, but with limited funding we do have to apply criteria when deciding how to spend it. We haven’t and would not facelift a street purely on the basis of a resident’s petition.”

The Council told us each street is judged against the following:

• 1 – If any grant work has been done in the street before.

• 2 – If the street is close to a new ‘development site’ such as new housing or renovations.

• 3 – If the street is visible from a main road or bus route.

Points 2 and 3 have equal weighting. Point 1 has a lower weighting. This criteria has been reviewed and is to be brought to an Area Panel meeting for approval.

The Council received a petition from Firs Hill, but not from Abbeyfield residents.

They confirmed that Roe Lane was on the list of potential streets for facelift, but there wasn’t enough funding to do the work this year.