The Voice of … Cornfield Terrace

Posted by admin on 26/1/10 • Categorised as News, No. 53 Nov 2007

St Peters Church Hall (left) with Streatfield House behind at the top end of Cornfield Terrace.

Continuing our street surveys of opinion, this month we highlight Cornfield Terrace. We included a questionnaire to help analyse figures, of which only 13 were returned.

Bohemia 92% of those residents who responded like living in Bohemia, and 84% said it was a friendly neighbourhood. Brian and Ilona Clear, who had just moved in, had already found people to be very friendly and said there is “a nice feeling that we live in a definite community – Bohemia.” Mr Baister said that when he moved in 12 years ago, “there were still some of the old people left, but now many houses are let to tenants, who don’t keep it so nice.” R. Harrison said that the area had gone downhill in the last five years, with noisy neighbours and lots of vandalism to cars, the latter especially in the last six months. “We’ve had enough, we’re going!” she told us. No-one stated definitely that it was not a friendly neighbourhood.

Shopping 92% of people shop in Bohemia at least once a week.
Post office 61% want the post office back.

Red phone box 46% support the idea of a traditional red phone box in Bohemia.

ASDA 46% are looking forward to the opening of ASDA, 46% don’t have any strong feelings one way or the other, and 7% said they don’t want it.

Churches a full 100% never regularly attend one of Bohemia’s churches, despite there being a church at the top of the road.

Complaints There was a complaint about residents at the top of the street putting several new engines into their car with the result that “oil flows down the road and gets tramped into the house.”

Community centre 77% say that the area needs a community centre.
Architecture 77% want architectural features of Bohemia to be preserved.

Street cleaning 46% are satisfied with the standard of street cleaning, 38% said they didn’t know, and 15% said they were not satisfied. Brian and Ilona Clear were pleased with the decision not to issue wheelie bins to Cornfield Terrace because “It would have been chaos; this street is too narrow. Behind is a rabbit-warren of where people live; two separate families living in one house, and people would be putting their rubbish in other people’s bins.” Mr Baister said that he picks up litter from the street himself.

Dogs 84% definitely agreed with our suggestion that people who let their dogs foul pavements should be put in the stocks, in fact one person ticked “yes” three times, adding, “Especially when it’s outside your front door!”

Street bobbies 84% like to see street bobbies patrolling the area. Two days after we collected the completed questionnaires, four youths were seen walking down Cornfield Terrace trying to light fires under parked cars, one of which suffered some minor damage. The police arrested one youth. Mr Baister said there had been yobs running along the tops of the walls opposite, and a lot of noise, and that he had tried putting window boxes out but gave up because youths kept tipping them out.

Street lighting 84% were satisfied by the level of street lighting.
Parking Sarah Smith said, “Parking is atrocious, because a lot of the houses are flats. I would rather pay, say £200, to park outside my own house.” Another resident said that parking can be very hard during the day, due to people who drive in to work .

Village Voice 100% said they regularly read Bohemia Village Voice, though perhaps those who filled in our questionnaire would do. New residents Brian and Ilona Clear said they had never seen anything quite like it before and added “Good on you for collecting all this data!”

Speed bumps Mr Adams, who has lived in Cornfield Terrace for 50 years, showed Voice staff the road humps immediately outside his house. On the downhill side was a large area scratched and scraped by the bottoms of innumerable cars. He told us that cars speed down the hill and “bottom on the road going over the bumps”, making a terrible noise. He was therefore dubious about the efficiency of speed bumps and would rather see a speed restriction instead. “It’s dangerous because families come out of the gates on the other side of the street, and there’s no pavement there.” He also mentioned the danger caused by skateboarders using the hill, “like a built-in amusement park!”

Buses 54% are satisfied with bus transport in Bohemia, 30%, presumably car owners, didn’t know, and one firmly ticked “no”, adding “not after today!”