Appleby residents may feel a keen sense of deja vu to learn that its town councillors are once again “talking bollards”.
Town councillor Martin Stephenson reported that he had seen another bollard which was “flat on the deck”.
“It is falling over periodically, actually,” said Mr Stephenson.
District, town and county councillor Andy Connell said the issue with Appleby’s bollards was one that understandably “gets on people’s nerves”.
“Especially when they see another one has gone down which is “rotten at the bottom”, he said.
Mr Connell said that there had been all sorts of talk about “doing this that and the other” with the bollards, but nothing seemed to get done.
Appleby mayor Gareth Hayes said he had shown three Cumbria in Bloom judges around the town and they had given “negative points for the bollards”.
“It was up by the Legion that they spotted them. It was clearly the strimming damage, but there is a couple of new ones that have gone down up there.”
Mr Connell said: “I think strimming doesn’t help them — energetic strimming.”
John Pape said he thought that the wrong material was being used to construct the bollards.
“They are using oak, but it is new oak and it just rots away in no time at all. That is my findings,” he observed.
Mr Hayes added: “The bloom committee asked an interesting question, which was: ‘Why have you got them at all?’ I said it is part of our anthropological infrastructure.”
In 1999, a row broke out over a plan to install metal “cannon-style” bollards in Boroughgate. It was felt at the time that it was important for the town to retain a sense of its own identity and a proposal for wooden bollards won more support.
