Wonderwall

This wall is on the corner of Wickham Rd and Cranfield Rd (opposite St Peters Church). It's been in this state of disrepair for some weeks now.

BC was concerned that not only is this an eyesore, it could also be dangerous as the remaining sections look structurally unstable. We used the council's LoveLewisham service to report it, but no action was forthcoming. So we emailed our local councillor and moaned about it on the internet. So far, so predictable.

But this is where the story gets (slightly) more interesting. For Lewisham Council head of environmental services Nigel Tyrell read the blog post and accompanying comments thread, and emailed BC. He said the council was keen to improve the way it responded to residents who use LoveLewisham, and that council staff have increasingly been using the service to report fly-tipping, graffiti and other problems they spot while out and about; this has resulted in a noticeable drop in the number of reports by residents. He also promised to look into BC's concerns about the wall.

A period of radio silence ensued, while the council cogs turned, and then last week came another email from Mr Tyrell. There had been some scratching of heads to work out which part of the council, or its sub-contractors, was responsible for the wall, and the buck had finally stopped with Pinnacle, which runs the council's housing PFI contract. The wall stands on council property, but the house and its grounds have become the responsibility of the PFI contractor. Pinnacle has now been informed of the problem and intends to re-build the wall; the council is keeping an eye on it to ensure that this happens, Mr Tyrell added.

BC's aware that this is a small tale, hardly on a par with our usual vibrant fare, but we thought it was important to give the council credit where it's due. We've never lived in a local authority area where a senior council figure takes the time to get in touch personally to explain what action the council has taken on a particular issue. Come to that, we've never lived in a local authority area where a service like LoveLewisham has been available.

As for the wall, little has changed as yet - the only concession to BC's complaint is the appearance of some fencing panels (visible in one of the pictures above) at quite a distance from the wall and with a large gap in the middle. We're not sure what effect these are intended to have, but we hope that Pinnacle must have some idea what it's doing.

BC will of course bring readers further updates on this vital issue as and when anything happens.