Its an old adage that if you repair a pavement then one of the Utilities will come and dig it up within a couple of months, and never has it been truer than in the case of the Burnage Retail Scheme.

The City Council did a great deal of work to improve the look of the shopping parade at the junction of Burnage Lane and Mauldeth Road, and the improvements were very much welcomed by the local community.  Local Councillors were therefore astounded to see United Utilities dig up the pavements outside the Victoria only weeks after they had been laid.

Burnage Councillor and Shadow Executive Member for Street Environment and Trading Services, Cllr Iain Donaldson stated, “I was cycling to my advice surgery when I saw that the pavement had been dug up and left in a total mess.  I contacted officers immediately to ask that they ensure that the pavement be re-laid to the high quality of work which was originally undertaken.”

Cllr Donaldson has been  pleased with the response from  officers who have told him that “now that the repair has been completed by UU the reinstatement works will be undertaken by Manchester Contracts to ensure the quality of paving is retained.  Manchester Contracts have agreed to prioritise his work due to the prominent location and have allocated labour for 17th August onwards to complete the work.”

Cllr Donaldson added that “Once the work is completed I will be checking to ensure that it looks as good as it did before the pavements were dug up in the first place.”

Thousands and thousands of brand-new, 2005 Yellow Pages directories are about to be delivered across Manchester. There will be one for every home despite many people not needing or wanting these directories.

The fact that Manchester City Council has teamed up with the Yellow Pages Directory Recycling Scheme is good news for getting rid of the old copies of the Directory, but Liberal Democrats on the City Council are calling for a much more radical approach for the future.

Shadow Spokesperson for Street Environment and Trading Services, Cllr Iain Donaldson, explained that “With modern communications systems, and so many people in our city now having access to the Internet either at home or at work, the idea that we need an old fashioned directory delivered to every door in the city is an absolute nonsense!”

“Every year thousands of these directories are disposed of still in the wrapping they were delivered in, destroying acres of woodland and wasting a great deal of energy both in disposal of the old copies and in the production and distribution of the new copies. Whats more, the cost of disposing of the old copies is met by the Council Tax payers of Manchester, not the profitable business producing all this waste.”

Cllr Donaldson added that “Once again this council is taking tiny steps towards dealing with a massive waste of our natural resources. Minimisation should be the first principle of any waste management programme, and a far more effective innovation would be to only deliver the Yellow Pages Directory to people who ask for it.”