Dublin City Council has written to residents of Griffith Ave asking them to stop brushing and blowing leaves out of their property and onto the public area of the road, including the footpath and cycle track.
Over the weekend Dublin City Council clean-up teams were busy finishing clearing the cycle tracks (see above image) after an excessive amount of leaves were dumped on the cycle tracks in the last week or so (below image).
While the letter to residents doesn’t clearly mention the cycle track, locally it is being viewed as a reference to how the cycle tracks were filled with leaves. The extent of the volume of leaves the cycle tracks was highlighted in an article published on this website last week.
The letter which was delivered to houses on the road said that leaf clearance was a “mammoth task” and that Dublin City Council “appreciate the help of the residents in removing leaves from the public footpaths and keeping them clear”.
It added: “Any leaves that fall onto your property become your responsibility. Please remove and dispose of leaves that fall on your property responsibly.”
The council said to residents that the leaves can be put in brown bins for collection by their registered waste collector, composted in gardens, or brought to the council’s civic amenity sites around Dublin which accept green waste at a cost of €2 per bag (80 litres max) or €16 per 1m³ bag, commonly called ‘builder’s bags’.
The letter said: “We have well and truly entered the leaf fall season and Dublin City Council, along with the help of the residents of Griffith Ave are working tirelessly to remove the fallen leaves and keep the public footpath and road clear. The work carried out so far is commendable to say the least.”
“Unfortunately, DCC have received complaints that some residents are removing fallen leaves from their front gardens and placing them onto the public footpath and road for removal by Dublin City Council. Dublin City Council do not operate a leaf collection service from private households,” the letter said.
In two words: CAMDEN STREET.
An absolute nightmare street for punctures.
Every morning you’ll see staff from the pubs & restaurants sweeping glass & other crap out into the cycle lane. I spoke to a City Council person about this (name withheld) and they said it is driving the DCC sweeping guys (with the carts) insane having attempt to keep up with it and that City Council officials are simply not interested in prosecuting offenders. I have to cycle outside of the cycle lane to avoid the glass whenever I cycle on that route.
I used to get a puncture once or twice a month. I switched to schwalbe marathon plus tires a few years ago. Only had one puncture since.
Obviously be better if these businesses acted responsibly or were held to account but other tires may help.
That’s a level of littering I would think should result in the council removing their entitlement to use outdoor space? Seriously though, any pub that is sweeping its broken glass onto the road should have no permissions to use outdoor space for drinking. Period.
I use quite expensive puncture-resistant tyres myself also, but the glass on that route? Forget it. Marathon plus wont defend against what you’l encounter on that route lads. You’l need military-grade tyres or something. I challenged a guy sweeping leaves, glass and debris outside an internet shop at Christchurch and he said “the council will sweep it up” and just kept doing it.
The manufacturer of Marathon Plus tires warns “It is impossible to guarantee that a flat will never happen”. But glass is one of the things which Marathon Plus tires protect against.
They are so sure about it that they use a photo of their tire running over broken glass https://www.schwalbe.com/unplattbar/en
I would still advise people to avoid cycling over glass but when cycling in Dublin switching to Marathon Plus brought me from a number of punctures every winter guaranteed to maybe one every few years and that was down to low tire pressure and a large pot hole.
Maybe a suggestion but Fingal county council gives my estate 3 huge leaf cages so we can all sweep our own leaves up into them and have nice mulch for the garden the following year. Maybe suggest leaf cages for the road. It took me and my next door neighbour two full days to clear our gardens and road frontage of leaves and I filled an entire brown bin.
Yes, I agree – mentioned this commenting on a previous post. Wire leaf cages are brilliant. Maybe the council could also provide smaller ones to all houses with actual gardens in the front (as opposed to car parks).