Work began today on the first stages of rebuilding a wall badly damaged last week in Eyre Place. The wall bounds backgreens behind tenements at the top of Canonmills.
Staff at Smithie’s Ale House told Spurtle they first noticed the partial demolition on Friday afternoon, and reported it to Police out of concern that someone could fall from the pavement into the sunken area below.
It was the Police who then covered the area in roughly a mile-and-a-half of blue-and-white hazard tape.
Errors can and do occur, however, as we have seen before with the destruction of a wall behind the Broughton Road Tesco in August 2011 (Issue 197).
Fortunately, no-one was hurt in either event, but these incidents raise concerns for domestic areas adjoining commercial premises, and also for nearby, narrow public pavements with high footfall.
Huge vehicles struggling to access this particular branch of Jewson are by no means an uncommon sight, and the damage they cause to the pavement in terms of cracking and subsidence is obvious (see photos top-right and bottom). So is it time the company imposed a weight or length restriction on the lorries delivering to its Eyre Place depot?
We asked Jewson’s head office in Coventry for a comment earlier today, and await their reply. When we receive it, we'll add it to the foot of the page here.
In the meantime, what do you think about commercial deliveries in the city centre? Are lorries just too big these days or are they a price worth paying for economic freight and competitive prices? Tell us by email spurtle@hotmail.co.uk on Facebook Broughton Spurtle or Twitter @theSpurtle
-----------------
@theSpurtle @cocteautriplets Or do what many other cities do, & ban lorries from the city. Have em deliver to depots, n swap to smaller vans
@theSpurtle a banksman might have been a good idea #simplesafety