Thursday, December 02, 2010

Snow clearing - Praise for the Co-op

This from one of our regular correspondents:

THE Coop gets enough slagging off about their prices but a young member of staff at the High Street shop deserves a pat on the back for the superb job he has done of completely clearing the pavement of snow. Duncan Strath was out with his shovel making sure at least one stretch of the High Street was safe for shoppers. Even his dad Tommy who doesn't work in the store mucked in.
Surely this is an opportunity for Nairn shopkeepers to steal a march on the pulling power of the Eastgate Centre.
One pensioner made the point if every shop in the town centre made a little effort and followed this young lad's example it would make Nairn a safer shopping environment and encourage people to come 'down the street' to do some of their Christmas shopping.
We cannot expect our council staff to do everything for us. In times like these we all need to play our part. If shopkeepers took responsibility for clearing the pavements it would allow limited council resources to be diverted to other areas of need. Come on you shopkeepers, show you mean business and get out these shovels. Well done Duncan

11 comments:

Local Resident said...

Notice too how Mr Sandy Park complained in the Nairnshire that not many shopkeepers attended the design session for the town centre last Monday night.
Maybe our shoopkeepers should pay more attention to community issues?

Anonymous said...

over here in Canada we have a law on sidewalk clearing. If you own the property it faces onto you have to clear it.
The area Im in gets far more snow than Nairn and everyone seems to be able to get the walkways cleared.

Anonymous said...

The Co-op needs to get Duncan over to Co-op 2 to give them lessons on how to clear the entrance to the shop properly!

Anonymous said...

I know that a representative from
the Association of Nairn Businesses was at the design session and, after all , the advert that the Council placed in the paper about the meeting said that places were restricted.

The Highland Council can't have it both ways - you can't really criticise folks for not going to an event when you've previously told them that the numbers allowed to attend are limited.

Sounds like another case that anyone used to dealing with our esteemed local authority will be familiar with ie. the right hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing.

On the more important point, an emphatic yes, shop owners should be more prepared to sort the snow in front of their shops. Apart from stopping the occasional shopper from falling on their arse, the snow makes a hell of a mess of your carpets :)

James said...

OI Ive been doing the same at work too! its not just Duncan doing his bit!

Gurn snow clearing correspondent said...

Good on you too James and I notice some other shop fronts have cleared there pavements. But for the most part the only clearing at shop frontages has been the strip done by the council.

James said...

Well the council hadnt cleared much, so i got the brush out and i cleared it all away from the shop front and off the pavement too

S'now fair said...

It seems that a lot of the High Street premises (not just shops) don't value their customers very much as too many of them have made no effort to clear the snow and ice from directly in front of their buildings. How much effort would it take? Maybe Duncan and James could offer their services or hold a training session on how to clear snow?

Carpetbagger said...

In response to Anon.How do you think
all us carpets feel? Its not very nice having all those arses landing in a big pile on your doorstep at all times of the day.Especially when they had run out of doggie baggies at the service point today.

Graisg said...

I can understand shopkeepers who pay massive business rates expecting a decent service off the local authority but maybe what you see now is all you will get.
A whole new paradigm dawns, with council pay offs and privatisation of services etc.
The guys in orange boilersuits are working very hard but will they be there after this winter is past?
I imagine most of the well-paid high heid yins will remain through at Glenurquhart Road however.

Anonymous said...

if someone will feed and house me for the winter I am willing to come over from Canada with my shovel.
I'll do the entire high street each day no problem.