Colchester and its “cat’s litter tray” that cost £93,000! 😮

Here in Qld Australia our local Council has put Artificial Turf on some of the traffic Islands. It looks great, a green clean look that’s easy to blower vac the leaves from. ✅

OMG don’t you realise how dreadful that stuff is for the environment Who on earth passed that to happen and you re cheering it ! please think beyond ….. it looks tidy …. For heavens sake

SillyNanny321

No proper Bus Station in Colchester & not likely to ever be one!

Thanks for that, SillyNanny. I didn't think that a rather bleak looking 'waiting room' and a few bus stops at the roadside really constituted a 'bus station😆

Even the very old one in the 1950s at the bottom of St Johns St. was a better effort than that...

Weather related maybe? Hot weather bleaches real grass so you just get brown with bare patches.

Brisbane.

They're replacing grass in parks with artificial turf too. Bonkers.

Lilibet01

Here in Qld Australia our local Council has put Artificial Turf on some of the traffic Islands. It looks great, a green clean look that’s easy to blower vac the leaves from. ✅

😯

Just shocking - what are they thinking?

Which part of Queensland is that please?

Here in Qld Australia our local Council has put Artificial Turf on some of the traffic Islands. It looks great, a green clean look that’s easy to blower vac the leaves from. ✅

No proper Bus Station in Colchester & not likely to ever be one!

Drove around this roundabout twice today and it looks fine and does it's job. It's finished and there doesn't seem to be any storm damage. It'll take time for the plants to establish.
Not worth the amount quoted but better than the uncut grass and weeds of other similar areas.

MissAdventure

At least people's last memory will be of this lovely roundabout as they disappear into a pothole.

🤣🤣🤣

Mt61

It would have been cheaper to tarmac it 🙄

😯

Causing even more flooding!

MissAdventure

At least people's last memory will be of this lovely roundabout as they disappear into a pothole.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

It would have been cheaper to tarmac it 🙄

At least people's last memory will be of this lovely roundabout as they disappear into a pothole.

It is a sign of the times and city centres up and down the country are suffering, aren't they. Same here - outskirts have great "retail parks". Like I said above, I'm in favour of limited projects like this one and don't see it as a vanity project, but not to spend one lots more like this.

I am a Colchester resident born and bred. In fact I live on the outskirts on a very busy side of the now City. I can walk to Aldi, M&S, Sainsburys and Next. You learn when not to drive to Stane Park.
I am saddened to see the state of our City Centre as do not venture there unless I really have to. It is a shame that the big stores like M&S, Next, Debenhams and many others have chosen to move on( or have ceased trading) but I suppose that is a sign of the times.
As for this roundabout. I very rarely drive that way and I do hope that once it is completed it will be worth the large amount of money that is being used to do this. I personally think the money could have been better spent elsewhere but I am not in charge of funding.

I'm sure the Telegraph was only too aware that the picture was of the beginnings of a "work in progress" there's a lot of real dishonestly in this sort of selective reporting - including now we find the council only contributed to it fractionally.

I think if a town (as mine has) chosen a key site for a landmark project to improve the failing city centres then money is OK to spend - no to all many vanity projects but I dont think this is one of them.

Whitewavemark2

One of the first political threads that I got involved in on GN back in 2011/12 was one about the austerity cuts the Tory government was making to councils.

It was said then at such an early stage of the cuts that councils would be hard pushed to budget for all the public services it is legally bound to cover, let alone all the other stuff that helps make life more pleasant for its residents.

They have had 14 years worth of savage cuts - leaving many totally bankrupt and in disarray.

This state of affairs will certainly not be resolved very quickly.

Meantime, what fun it is to find fault and continually moan about a situation many voted for and now seem to regret. What short memories we have.

👏👏👏👏👏👏

One of the first political threads that I got involved in on GN back in 2011/12 was one about the austerity cuts the Tory government was making to councils.

It was said then at such an early stage of the cuts that councils would be hard pushed to budget for all the public services it is legally bound to cover, let alone all the other stuff that helps make life more pleasant for its residents.

They have had 14 years worth of savage cuts - leaving many totally bankrupt and in disarray.

This state of affairs will certainly not be resolved very quickly.

Meantime, what fun it is to find fault and continually moan about a situation many voted for and now seem to regret. What short memories we have.

Only a fraction of the money was from the Council. Greater Anglia, which is the overpriced profiteering rail company paid a share

Compounding the issue of frittering money away then (this time from the fare-paying public). I bet they’d just prefer the eye wateringly high ticket prices to be reduced!

Why oh why can’t organisations (of any stripe) just get back to basics and Do Them Well?

Allira

^its topsoil was replaced to prevent weeds growing^
Our council spent a lot of money planting weed wild flower seeds!

I wonder what these drought-tolerant plants will be? They can't be getting as much rain over that side of the country as we in the West have been getting.

Putting membrane down and planting through it might have been a better idea.

It would have been a much better idea to do that but when did councils do the best ideas? They seem to love anything that costs the most and looks the worst.

Pittcity

Nannylovesshopping

As a Colchester resident, I can assure you the roundabout is hideous, and yes would have much preferred pot holes attended to. Have lived here many years, we are now a city, it would be rude of me to put in print how down the pan Colchester has fallen, the High street is a joke, no decent shops, as in many other high streets, M&S moved to retail park along with Next etc, getting a parking space is unheard of, if you do find one, can take up to an hour to get out, I could go on and on, but am boring myself, and need a large gin!

I live in Colchester and know that there are a lot of expensive White Elephant projects. I totally agree with NLS
Filling potholes is the remit of Essex County Council, who sit in their Chelmsford offices and have probably never set foot in Colchester.
If this roundabout doesn't need mowing or other upkeep it'll be less of an eyesore than many others.
If the OP got information from the Colchester Gazette then they should read some of the other guff that they make up on a daily basis.

Just one more whinge, have a lamppost outside my house, defunct for at least a year, email response, yes we are aware of this, please do not query again!!!

Council money is allocated and has to be spent on the area it is earmarked for. It can't just be used for other purposes.

I wonder why it wasn’t allocated to filling in potholes then?

eazybee

I am surprised that in these straitened times any council would consider spending over £90,000 on redesigning a roundabout. Turf and a Welcome to Colchester sign would be more appropriate. Spend the money on improving local services rather than giving it to an overpriced garden company.

Only a fraction of the money was from the Council. Greater Anglia, which is the overpriced profiteering rail company paid a share.
Council money is allocated and has to be spent on the area it is earmarked for. It can't just be used for other purposes.

vegansrock

We had a scruffy roundabout covered in weeds along our main road. The council did nothing so a group of guerrilla gardeners have planted it up and maintained it this year. They got lots of soil and plants donated and the local pub has kept it watered. It looks fab and cost hardly anything

Well done them!

FlitterMouse

Thank you Whitewavemark2 for posting much more information about the project than the newspapers that want to knock the project chose to print.

Many years ago, I was one of the team who planted the Dry Garden at RHS Hyde Hall, under the management of the then curator Matthew Wilson and inspired by the work of Beth Chatto.

Many of the beds and borders at Hyde Hall are high maintenance. One of the main points of the Dry Garden was that it would be left to its own devices other than the occasional tidy. It wouldn’t be watered. Planting was very sparse with space for plants to spread and self seed. For the first few years it really didn’t look that great but look at it now.

www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/hyde-hall/garden-highlights/dry-garden

As a child we lived for two years in Buckhatch Lane, which used to be the only road you could go down to get to Hyde Hall, a truly lovely garden with lots of lovely memories.

Our holiday lodge in St Oysth is close to Beth Chatto’s gardens which we are looking forward to visiting in the spring.

All the roundabouts in Colchester are hideous and hideously busy haha