Jet blasting of the pavements of Moseley centre – update – 1st June 2006

I have just come back from a site meeting with the company who intend to jet blast the pavements of Moseley shopping centre. The objective of this meeting was to identify exactly what they would do and firm up on a quote.

The cost will now end up between £5000 and £6000. This is down from the £10,000 initially quoted.

The area they will do covers the following:
· The blocked paved section between Chantry Road and Salisbury Road
· The blocked paved section between Woodbridge Road and King Edward Road
· The blocked paved section of St.Marys Row and the Village Green
· The tarmaced section of Alcester Road (both sides) from Salisbury Road to the Post Office (or the car park entrance on the other side)

The company will do the following:
· Leaflet all the shops explaining what is about to happen and give them a mobile telephone number to contact with any concerns
· The operation will take place at night so as not to affect any shop trade
· Drive over the sections of pavements with their jet washing machine – this will bring the pavements up like new……unfortunately, it bring us polish up the bubble gums like new
· Walk over the pavements with a steam cleaner and remove all the bubble gum.
· Drive over the pavement again to clean up the removed bubble gum patches
· Re-fill all the gaps between the blocks with sand and weedkiller
· Make a note of any wobbly blocks, so that Highways can repair them
· The steam cleaner will create clouds of debri which will land on street furniture and shop windows. All street furniture and shop windows will be wiped down after steam cleaning has taken place. Masking tape will be used to prevent debri getting into door locks or through gaps in shop doors. Where, the shops has a perforated shutters, the local window cleaner will be contacted.

I have asked the company to put in a bid for Community Chest funds on this basis.

If the bid is approved by the Ward Committee, the company would be able to clean the pavements in mid-June.