By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
Concerns have been raised about a burned out van and “mobile mechanic” using a Gloucester city centre car park to fix vehicles.
Barton and Tredworth councillor Sajid Patel has called on Gloucester City Council chiefs to back their “buzz words” in the latest corporate plan with action to make residents’ lives better.
The Conservative told Monday’s (May 19) council meeting at North Warehouse that he had “lost count of the amount of emails he had sent over the issue.”
The car park in Sinope Street is being used to fix cars and he said there has been a burnt out van in the car park behind The Treddy for six weeks.
“We have a city council owned car park in my ward where we had some work done a year ago,” he said.
“That work hasn’t been finished. “It has taken ten months and I’ve lost count of how many emails I have to send to get some additional bark chippings in.
“We have a mechanic who has turned that city council car park into a mobile mechanic workshop,” he said.
He also said street drinking is taking place in city council car parks and residents are “fed up about complaining about these problems time and time again”.
“We say we want to improve their lives,” he said. “Well let’s see it then.
“Let’s not just see words. Let’s see what happens.”
He also said he had sent nine emails to get another “burnt out” van removed from a city council car park.
Council leader Jeremy Hilton (LD, Kingsholm and Wotton) said it was frustrating that issues were being raised which were not related to the corporate plan.
He said: “Councillor Patel always brings things that are unrelated to the discussions we are having. Making accusations about this and that and a car dumped in some street that nobody knows about but he knows about,” he said.
“We all have cars dumped in streets and we get them moved.
“It’s about time members like Cllr Patel put those issues in writing to me so that we know what we are talking about instead of raising it at a meeting.”