Did you see the amazing sunset over Leicester on the 12th October 2009?

Many people in ST Peters live high up in the 18 floor apartment buildings giving them an unrivalled view over the city.

From time to time we can see the most spectacular sunsets that most people in this city at ground level are oblivious too or can only see partially.

It gives us great pleasure to share this one with you all that we filmed ad hoc without use of a tripod (so please excuse the shakey video).

Our Digital media experts Webwordwizards have prepared the video for us using their very own HD Gold standard so we can present it to you at its very best quality... showing you the sunset in the fullest gamut of colours. Please enjoy.

Click Here for video...

Do you have photos of this Leicester sunset or others? Contact us and let us know.

St Peters NM has been looking at some of the gardens here in St Peters Leicester.

During August 2009 we were invited by Mr & Mrs Sayed of St Peters to come and view their front and back gardens.

We were so impressed that we have produced some HD video for the neighbourhood website of it to share with everyone else.

Mohamed Sayed and his wife has lived at his property since August 1999, during which time they have seen many changes in the street... all for the better. (Read More...)

Click Here for video...

Do you have a garden you would like us to come and see? Contact us and let us know.

Show All

July 2009 - More Litter Louts Filmed

This man was observed by us throwing his rubbish out of his car onto a road in our neighbourhood on Sunday 12th july 2009.

His family were in the car with him. Is this why littering is such a problem in this neighbourhood because parents themselves are setting a bad example right in front of their own kids?

The aggravating factor in this littering crime was that he was within clear sight of 2 litter bins? Is it bone idleness or just plain ignorance?

How are these people we film littering, being brought up to be like this?

Now we are intent on identifying him so we may get action taken against him.

Do you recognise him? If so please contact us and let us know who they are.

Please be assured your anonymity will be retained.

See the video of this litter lout and some of the other Litter Louts we have filmed here in St Peters, Highfields, Leicester.

This video is downloadable in HD 1280 x 720 MPEG4. This is a much higher quality format that will display on most modern computer displays. Please email us and we will send you the link to this video in High Definition.

He can also find himself on YouTube where thousands of others can see him throwing the litter out of his car onto our streets.

Article Written by Albert Berer
Photography by Albert Berer
Date Written June 15th 2009
Date last Modified July 13th 2009
Status: Complete

Risk It or Bin It Campaign - StPetersNM.com's High Tech Shock and Awe War on Litter

In an unprecedented High Tech war on litter in our Neighbourhood, St Peters NM have begun releasing Litter Lout Video's both here on STPETERSNM.COM and on our YouTube channel in our bid to identify and have prosecuted individuals who believe they can blight the lives of the rest of this community with their litter.

What we show you in these video's will not fail to shock at the brazen disregard that people show when casting their litter into our midst.

Their audacity is only equalled by the impunity to which they believe they can do it. As for far too long, Leicester City Council has done little to deter those who litter and in fact, until recently, have often also done far too little to clear it up.

The technology we have brought to bear in this 'shock and awe war' on litter is breath taking in its sophistication and capability. If people throw litter in future in St Peters they are taking a foolish risk. Trust us... It is a much better option for them to take their litter home or bin it properly.

Hard hitting and far reaching

Our no nonsense ‘Risk It or Bin It’ campaign is unapologetically hard hitting in approach and far reaching in scope. Read more here...

Accidents do happen...

Yes of course accidents happen and people inadvertently drop an item. However, as in each and everyone of the 18 video's published so far to date, you will only ever see video's used where we can be sure of the intent. Usually intent is quite obvious. Once the video is slowed down frame by frame we verify through visual body signals that the person involved deliberately dropped an item or through circumstances that it was deliberately left.

It we have any doubt... we leave it out.

As in Litter Lout 4, although the item was accidentally dropped, we see the person then realised he had dropped litter but then continued to walk away and leave it. That was his mistake. The offence is "to drop or to leave litter".

Innocent people have no reason to worry, including those who accidentally drop of leave something. Video's of such people would never be published.

Are we naming and shaming?

No we are not... we are asking others to name the people videoed littering so we may pass their details onto the relevant authorities for action to be taken against them.

Are we shaming these people? Well, many would look at these people and suggest they are probably not capable of shame. However we don't believe this to always be the case.

We do hope they see these video's and feel ashamed for what they have done and are motivated to email us and make arrangements to have the video's removed.

Already we have begun receiving emails that contain expressions of remorse and regret and we have begun to work with the Warden Service on Leicester City Council so fixed penalty notices may be issued and we can remove video's.

Is this Citizen Policing?

No it is not. With a credible website with some 40,000+ hits per month and online publishing 'know how' we are merely using that publishing power along with YouTube and social networks to try to obtain the identities of those blighting our neighbourhood.

Obtaining this information will enable us to pass it onto the relevant authorities to take action. These authorities will then in turn review the video and information and make a decision on whether to pursue.

We are merely functioning as a neighbourhood watch in gathering information and then passing it on in a form that enables action to be taken.

The more a community works with the police and local authorities to deal with crime, anti-social behaviour which littering, fly tipping are, then the more successful these bodies are in reducing incidence of such offences. The level of success they have is usually dependant on the level of public support and cooperation they receive.

Are we invading privacy?

In a day and age when there are so many camera's around us not only the CCTV but the myriad of mobile phone camera's that people carry and use often catching us in the back ground or passing by we are still of course right to wonder if we are taking away someone's right to privacy. Many of these informal snap shots and video snippets normal everyday people take on their mobiles end up online with potentially millions of viewers.

Well, No we are not. It is not an offence to even film and photograph law abiding people going about their daily lives and post that on the internet.

This video on the BBC News website shows people on a beach. Did they get signed or verbal agreements from those people to film and use their image. No of course not. Could those people take legal action for breach of privacy. Well... yes they can but they wouldn't have any chance of success. Because the BBC and anyone else has a right to do that.

However we try to avoid in the litter lout video's including frames that contain other innocent parties. Sometimes this is not always possible so we make clear in the video who we are calling the 'litter lout'.

Often we do not use video's because innocent and unassociated people come into view at a crucial part of the shot. We do digitally alter photography by blurring faces of innocent people. Litter Lout 10 is one particularly good example of a video that required careful editing by our digital media people.

We had to be particularly careful not to show the child next to the man seen leaving the bottle. But careful editing ensured also that other adults were not also shown.

Sometimes, though we simply choose not use video's to avoid showing innocent people. The thing about litter louts is that they are usually serial litter louts and will give us fresh chances to film them.

Are we trampling upon the rights of those videoed?

We find people sooner whinge and whine about their rights being trampled on than they are prepared to talk about their responsibilities, such as their responsibility to discard litter with consideration to the environment, the neighbourhood and the community that lives there.

But ok... lets talk about rights.

The rights of people who pay a large proportion of their income on rent, community charge and mortgage payments to have the walkways, streets and greenscaping in their neighbourhood not blighted by litter.

The rights of home owners who have difficulty selling their homes because the area in which they live looks run down and poorly maintained.

The rights of people who wonder what their friends and family will think and how they will judge them when they come and visit them in a litter blighted, graffiti ridden neighbourhood.

What about the rights of all these people?

How is the campaign publicity going?

The response has been truly fantastic. Nearly, everything went as planned or better than planned.

The campaign publicity started with the Leicester Mercury on Monday 29th June 2009 which gave almost all of page 3 to the story. In addition to that they ran the story on the Leicester Mercury website with an embedded video which in the next few days was to receive an additional 500+ unique views. That mercury article in 3 days added 4000+ local hits to the video's on our YouTube channel.

Local radio interviews were given to BBC Radio Leicester and Leicester Sound which then saw the campaign go up a gear as it went regional across the midlands.

We then invited ITV News to St Peters to come and see the litter in places like the highfields centre rear car park on Stoughton Street and also carry out an interview.

Meanwhile the next days press was going to print that saw the big Nationals like the Telegraph and the Daily Mail cover the story. The daily mail gave an impressive amount of space to the article that included many photo's and stills from the video's.

Now the story really was on a National footing and certainly much more so when we were invited to go on the high profile Radio 4 Today (Play Again - 0.48) program. The Today program is the flagship news and current affairs program on all of BBC Radio. Nearly 7 million listeners each week.

It really was an opportunity for St Peters neighbourhood Monitoring to have a word in the ear of the nation about littering and litter in our neighbourhood.

The same day, BBC TV news covered the story in their TV news at which point the St Peters Neighbourhood website here collapsed under the strain of the thousands of hits it was receiving and was offline for 30 minutes whilst our IT people put it onto a stronger and more capable server.

The comments and feedback from our website feedback form came pouring in. It was like MS Outlook had a virus.

All of the emails we have been able to read so far have been positive except for 2. One of these wondered how we had the time to monitor the litter louts and the other one said "~#@$$£%. y give names for ?" which as you can guess we assumed came from a litter lout or someone of that ilk.

We have had many emails from similar groups up and down the United Kingdom who are inspired by our work here. Many asking about how we do the video's and for an outline of how we work.

Litter certainly is a big national issue. The politicians both national and local would do well to take note of that.

Article Written by Albert Berer
Photography by St Peters NM Environment Team
Date Written March 8th 2009
Date last Modified July 4th 2009
Status: Article in Progress

Home Secretary Alan Johnson visits St Peters Leicester

(HD Video's and Extensive Slide Show coming soon...)
St Peters was pleased to welcome Alan Johnson the Home Secretary to our neighbourhood in Leicester.

He was met at the Highfields Centre by local Police including Inspector Shane O'Neill and community workers from the Highfields Centre including Priya Thamotheram along with local councillors Hanif Aqbany and Mohammed Dawood.

The day started early with school children on the way to nearby schools being greeted by the rare sight of a police sniffer dog checking out Stoughton Street and Oxendon Street.

Naturally we are pleased to report that nothing more malevolent than plenty of litter greeted it on its rounds. (Especially that permanent litter blighted eyesore, the Highfields Centre Rear 5 bay car park that we can't seem to be able to persuade Highfields Centre Management to keep clean.)

The Home Secretary, Alan Johnson is the UK's top policeman with over arching responsibility for crime fighting.

The Leicester Mercury reports that the Home Secretary feels that the crime figures for this area of leicester were really good and how Leicester is a place that other parts of the country can learn lessons from.

He also praised the Highfields Centre as being a "magnificent place" that brings people together from various communities.

He also is reported as stating that Leicestershire had been at the vanguard of community policing since before it very conception and how money taken from criminals will now be used for community projects.

Profile raising praising...

Naturally, with the profile raising praising for our Highfields Centre, local residents here hope it will spur the Highfields Centre Management into now keeping the litter cleared within its perimetre and perhaps get the 2 yr old graffiti cleared off its walls lest it be 'found wanting' in the 'magnificent places' stakes.

We also encourage the Highfields Centre and Leicester City Council to now put in a bid for litter bins that should have been added around its perimetre on completion of its construction. New litter bins perhaps funded from the proceeds of local criminals.

StPetersNM will bring you HD Video and Photo Slide Shows of this visit in next few days.... so watch this space.

Note: 21st July 2009 - Still intending to bring you video and slide show of this event however other more important articles and content have push the publishing date of this now into August.

Article Written by Albert Berer
Photography by Albert Berer
Date Written June 26th 2009
Date last Modified June 27th 2009
Status: Article in Progress

 

The Foxes of St Peters

St Peters - Highfields... Leicester, has a wealth of greenscaping that brings in birds, insects, badgers and foxes.

Our website designers and Leicester based Digital Media wizards (Webwordwizards)have prepared new digital media video for us showing some of our many foxes.

This Video is 80MB in size and will play intermittently on first play as it downloads.

June 2009 - Graffiti Grandad Filmed

This man, decided to graffiti the wall of a local mosque here in St Peters.

Now we are intent on identifying him so we may get action taken against him.

Do you recognise him? If so please contact us and let us know who he is.

Please be assured your anonymity will be retained.

Video coming soon... watch this space.

Article Written by Albert Berer
Photography by Albert Berer
Date Written June 15th 2009
Date last Modified June 15th 2009
Status: Complete

 

St Peters Playgroup gets new playground...

The St Peters Playgroup based at St Peters Church on St Peters Street \ Gopsall Street in Leicester have had a stunning new playground developed at the rear of the church building where the St Peters Playgroup is based.

An opening event to which the Archdeacon of Leicester is invited to come and open it, should be being held sometime during the month of May 2009. (Watch this space for further news and details on this...)

Article in progress...

St Peters Neighbourhood Management Board provide funding for new trees.

See our stunning HD Digital Media Video (30MB)
Click here for Ultra High Quality HD Video (66MB)

We had some money (approx £700) left over in our neighbourhood management budget and decided to try to find a way to spend it in a way that would have a long term benefit to the whole community and neighbourhood here in St Peters, Leicester.

After some thought the suggestion was raised that with the loss to the community of so many trees (at least a dozen) in recent years in the vicinity of the Highfields Centre and local school that we ought to reinstate at least some of them to what extent we are able.

In recent years, in the bid to build the new Highfields Centre, four cherry trees were removed and never reinstated. Whilst, in the grounds of an adjacent school, several more cherry trees in what is now the Highfields Centre car park fell to the chainsaw.

During 2008 this arboreal massacre persisted with the destruction and removal of three significant and well established trees in the grounds of the school car park in order to make way for 2 additional parking spaces.

So although we only have the funds to put in four trees at this time we hope it will go some small way to give back to the community something towards what has been lost and to undo in some small way at least the erosion of our greenscaping which after all is the neighbourhoods greatest asset.

The trees chosen will be colourful for approx 2 months of the year with vibrant yellow blossom. We hope it will improve the appearance of what is a major walkway for many hundreds of people each weeks as they walk between the area of the shops, highfields Library and Highfields Centre and the centre of St Peters via Galaxy Walk and the walkway towards Pluto Close and Framland House.

Many of us hope to see more trees being planted in this area very soon also.

St Peters NM would like to thank Leicester City Council and the Parks and Trees team who planted the trees here for us. But would add that we also hope that Leicester City Council will add to this with more new trees in this vicinity in the very near future.

Article Written by Mel
Photography by Mel
Date Written March 1st 2008
Date last Modified March 1st 2008
Status: Article Complete

 

Blackbirds become tolerated trespassers in a St Peters hanging basket

Each year like clockwork, a blackbird returns to her nest in St Peters and begins to patch up and repair her nest. This video and photography taken in May 2008 shows the family snuggled into their nest in an annexed hanging basket at the doorway of a maisonette somewhere right here in St Peters.

This year in 2009 we are awaiting news of her safe return to set up home again here once more.

Stpetersnm.com promises to keep you all posted... and the moment we hear she has returned again we will let you know and bring you coverage with new HD digital media of her arrival.

(See Digital Media HD VIDEO ...)

(Article, Slide Show and HD Video Digital Media in Progress...)

New Anti Selfish and Inconsiderate Parking Initiative in St Peters and Highfields...

We have previously raised the issue of inconsiderate parking by many here in St Peters. Their seems to be a free for all where people feel they can park where ever they like whenever they like and if they get a parking ticket they then go whinging and whining to their local councilors.

Well after reading an article in the Leicester Mercury on an incident in Duffield Street in Highfields Leicester where at least one selfish resident decided to park their vehicle in such a way that it impeded and delayed the rescue of a 2 year old boy from a house fire stpetersnm.com has decided to throw down this challenge.

If you feel that you can park where you like in this neighbourhood, and it is observed by us that you have parked in any way that can have impeded the progress of the emergency services we will film and photograph you and your vehicle and put you in our new Selfish Parking Gallery where in excess 40,000 people a month will see you and that vehicle.

Furthermore you should know that posters are produced based on the web pages of this website and are routinely placed on dozens of notice boards around this neighbourhood.

This website enjoys a world wide audience of half a million hits per year. Therefore you should understand be in no doubt whatsoever that we have the capacity to make you very famous indeed for the way you selfishly park your car.

Some will feel that this publishing policy may be somewhat excessive but we feel obliged to throw the weight of this website behind our anti selfish parking initiative to make people in St Peters and Highfields think long and hard about the way they have been parking their cars. They have historically failed to listen to the Police, the traffic wardens and Leicester city council.

We feel our actions of publishing them to the world wide web are a proportionate response to this issue that will serve to concentrate minds where clearly all else fails.

Not only do their actions put at risk members of the public who depend on the speedy arrival of the emergency services but they put at risk the lives and safety of the members of the Fire Service themselves because the situations they are delayed in arriving at are invariably much more advanced and dangerous.

Seconds can count... so don't play russian roulette with the safety and lives of yourselves and others by being too lazy to park further away from your home in a considerate way.

If we put your photo on this website for inconsiderate parking, it will never come down so don't test our resolve.

Previous related articles on this site:
1) May 3rd 2007,
2) May 11th 2007,
3) Inconsiderate Parking Gallery

Article Written by Albert Berer
Photography by Albert Berer
Date Written March 5th 2008
Date last Modified March 10th 2008
Status: Complete

 

What happened to Neighbourhood Management in St Peters?

Neighbourhood Management was a new way of working to improve many neighbourhoods around the country including some across Leicester including our own here in St Peters, Leicester.

It brought together a wide range of people who were already delivering services, working for organisations such as the Police, Health, the Council or for the voluntary and community sector in order that they can work in a more cohesive and coordinated manner.

St Peters Neighbourhood Management Board were a group comprised of residents, Leicester City Council housing management staff and members of other agencies including the Leicestershire Police who had got together to improve the standard of living in St Peters, Leicester.

By holding regular local bi-monthly meetings and further local meetings for focus sub groups in enabled the sharing our aspirations, knowledge and expertise that delivered visible results for all to see in St Peters.

St Peters NMB although doing many good things spent a colossal amount of time and money producing a delivery plan that many could argue was a real distraction from resolving the real issues because it was cheaper to waste money on a plan than to invest the higher level of funding needed to to resolve the actual issues.

So what happened to it?

Basically, in one word. Politics. In two words... Labour politics... that's what many here in St Peters feel.

The Labour Cabinet at Leicester City Council saw fit to replace it with something rather oddly called "Community Meetings".

This "community meetings" arrangement in actual fact appears to do the opposite to what Neighbourhood Management did by disenfranchising the communities in Leicester through three primary inherent flaws in their design.

1. They don't take place regularly enough to really get things moving in terms of establishing the issues, working with people to design focused and credible solutions in the actually communities in which people live.
2. The people are being put out of "the loop" because most of the meetings are scattered away from the communities they are addressing making participation unlikely in all except the local community for each particular quarterly meeting. Essentially this means that residents in St Peters will only get one single meeting a year to raise issues and ask questions.
3. The arrangement brings no credible funding as was built into many neighbourhood management models to address the issues .

Earlier this year (2008) I attended a meeting held by LCC at Walkers Stadium for the purpose of launching "Community Meetings". As I sat there listening to Ross Willmot and Mary Draycott (Labour) describe with what I wondered was perhaps, conveniently, loosely with decorative rhetoric and meaningless spin their new method of consulting residents and delivering transformation in the neighbourhoods of this city.

It all sounded very good. I was seeing clean streets and walls. Litter bin on every corner being used and clean lifts and... For a while there I was almost taken in.

It was the shock and surprise from taking a gulp of neat orange squash which i had poured into my glass thinking it was freshly squeezed orange juice (having not noticed the nearby jug of water on our table) snapped me out of the trance like state the rest of the audience appeared to be under.

As i reached for the jug of water to try to dilute a glass of squash in the centimetre of space left in the glass i was aware that no one on my table had spotted my predicament with the squash.

The community meetings pied piper had their totally undivided attention as I realised their were no spare glasses on the table and I could not pour squash back into the carafe as I had drunk some from the glass.

Newly resigned to the idea that my glass of squash was now a totally lost cause, I looked around me and although everyone was still there... i got the distinct impression of great distance between them all and me for like a patient awakening during brain surgery whilst under anaesthetic I realised someone was trying to play with my mind.

In an instant I thus saw them all disappearing in the distance up a rather convoluted and lengthy "participate in this and improve your neighbourhood" garden path.

Clearly, community meetings are designed not so much with getting down to dealing with issues and improving neighbourhoods and the lives of the communities within them, but rather a 'going through the motions' in a vague and unrealistic scheme that will also likely be replaced by something further whilst people lives are passing them by in second and third rate run neighbourhoods.

This website is not political, so this warning goes for any administration. "Do not be misled into believing that we are not watching your "community meetings" scheme with anything other than great interest indeed.

Because it does not matter under which heading it is that you fail to listen to us and deliver under when we tell you we need more wardens and litter bins. That we need better ground maintenance and parking enforcement. That we want our apartment buildings to have secure access and lifts that are clean and function.

It does not matter if you call it neighbourhood management or community meetings or whatever you like if at the end of the day you have still taken votes, rent and rates from the people and have don't listen to what we tell you"

This time... things are different. Not because your community meeting scheme will work. Because it won't. But because when it fails Stpetersnm.com will in as sophisticated a manner as always increasingly possible we will keep the score and tally of what you deliver and fail to deliver.

And come election time... it won't matter how loud your loud hailers are as you drive up and down our streets for days on end blighting us with your endless hollow excuses and promises. Because you cant drown out a sophisticated neighbourhood website that has been for years keeping tally and showing the truth of your record in this city.

At least I was able to stuff my pockets with the really nice quality mini packs of biscuits from the community meetings launch event. I also learned a lesson about the dilute to taste orange squash ambush at such events. The rest of the you from St Peters will, I fear, get a lot less than that from "Community Meetings".

But there's always hope... in a year or two you might get to stuff your pockets with some decent complimentary biscuits as they launch yet another useless scheme.

Areas of focus for the St Peters Management Board included the following

• Community Safety and Crime
• Environment
• Health
• Housing
• Employment and Local Economy
• Education

Article Written by Mel
Photography by Mel
Date Written April 8th 2008
Date last Modified April 8th 2008
Status: Complete

Where are our new litter bins? - A 'Risk It or Bin It' Campaign Article.

With our launch of our 'Risk It or Bin It' campaign we take a timely look at the six new bins LCC put into the neighbourhood in May 2008 as a result of our 5 month campaign to get 50 new bins here. (Read more...)

Article Written by Mel
Photography by Mel
Date Written March 8th 2009
Date last Modified March 10th 2009
Status: Article in Progress

Overflowing Council Bins Outside our Homes

Article in Progress...

Article Written by Mel
Photography by Mel
Date Written Jan 27th 2009
Date last Modified Feb 12th 2009
Status: Article in Progress

 

History Mystery

St Peters NM is to start a fascinating exploration into the history of our neighbourhood by looking primarily at available census records from the previous 150 years or so.

In this exciting voyage of discovery we will gradually build up an detailed profile of the population as well as the character of our St Peters and Highfields neighbourhood through the reign of Queen Victoria and subsequent monarchs and gain insight into the working lives of those who lived here.

Interesting discoveries already made...

In our initial look into this as an option for a regular feature on the neighbourhood website for St Peters at stpetersnm.com we discovered some pretty interesting facts.

For example in 1901

• Many people who resided here in highfields came from across the UK
• Many households here had servants
• Unemployment was apparently non existent
• The neighbourhood appeared to house most of the merchants of the city.

How will this work?

Well from time we will take specific addresses in our neighbourhood and tell you who lived there and what their ages, and occupations were as well as their position in the household. At other times we will try to follow the fortunes of individuals, watching through historic records as they grow and study locally and then move into employment and marriage, move addresses, become parents and even grand parents.

We will sometimes bring you insights into streets such as the now ghostly Clipstone Street which are long since gone leaving nothing more then tell tale road signs on the sides of local buildings. Bringing back to life the addresses and people who lived there in what is now a church car park and school playground.

History Hounds Wanted

St Peters NM are looking for people with spare time and nothing more than basic IT skills and curiosity to join our team of history investigators. We will show you how to search through records such as census records along with birth, marriages and death records.

If you have some spare time, IT access and curiosity about the History of our neighbourhood please get in touch.

Article Written by Mel
Photography by Mel
Date Written March 1st 2009
Date last Modified March 10th 2009
Status: Article in Progress

Spinney Hills Ward which includes Highfields and St Peters recently held one of our key Community Meetings.

The community meeting was attended by about a hundred people including Leicester City Councillors and Cabinet members as well as services managers and of course residents.

We were pleased to invite a delegation also from our first twinned neighbourhood group SEMILONG.ORG of Semilong Northampton lead by Trevor Gordon. It was fascinating for us all to hear him discuss first hand the issues in Semilong and compare approaches in dealing with them.

Semilong's Trevor Gordon said " that he has much positive and practical feedback to bring back to Northampton who he says have quite some way to go yet in bringing their approach up to anywhere near our standards. He hopes to be able to explore further there with a view to seeing if our models of dealing with issues might also benefit them.

He was particularly fascinated by our new Community Warden Service as well as our robust no nonsense approaches to fly tipping.

Read More...

A number of local residents have emailed into Stpetersnm.com expressing concern about the increasing incidence dog fouling on the paths throughout the neighbourhood.

In particular they have expressed anger that either they or their children have stepped in the dogs mess and then having walked it into their homes. One lady described to us how she had to scrape it of her daughters shoe.

Another resident said "stpetersnm should film people like this" who allow "their dogs to crap all over the place" and "put them on the website".

Well, we agree. Like any other littering, people who fail to pick up and dispose of their dog mess in St Peters risk having their photo placed on the St Peters neighbourhood website here so we can try to identify them and pass the details to Leicester City Council's environmental crime unit for enforcement action to be taken.

Update 22nd Feb 2009:

True to our word the team at St Peters NM has now filmed and photographed a number of people in St Peters who walk their dogs in our neighbourhood without cleaning up after them. See our ignorant dog owners slide show ...

Article Written by Albert Berer
Photography by St Peters NM Environment Team
Date Written Jan 27th 2009
Date last Modified Feb 23rd 2009
Status: Article in Progress

 

Rats are now damaging key parts of the Virgin Media telephone infrastructure in St Peters, Leicester...

Like something out of the realms of science fiction, Rats in St Peters now appear to be working together to isolate us and cut off our lines of communications with the outside world prior to commencing their final onslaught on the residents of this neighbourhood.

While we admit that is not strictly objective reporting of the problem of rats now damaging the sub-terrain Virgin Media telecom's cables here, and perhaps a little far from the facts of the matter, we must admit that we did have some difficulty establishing what the real extent of the problem actually was.

St Peters NM tipped off

StPetersNM.COM received a tip off on Tuesday 17th February 2009 that the neighbourhood's Virgin Media telephone infrastructure had suffered damage from rodents causing telephone issues for a number of residents. Also, we were advised that rat traps were observed within the sub-terrain 'boxes' being worked on.

When contacted by StPetersNM.com for a statement, Virgin Media's Press Officer Rebecca Burke described the problem to us as an "isolated issue" but which upon further questions she later admitted was a problem, that to her knowledge "was without precedence in her entire 13yrs with the company".

Thousands of pounds to rectify...

StPetersNM.com were earlier informed by engineers working throughout the neighbourhood on Tuesday and the following day that the work in repairing the damage was costing Virgin Media thousands of pounds to rectify and that hundreds of metres of cabling over as far as Maidstone Road and possibly beyond were affected.

Update: Thursday 19th Feb 2009: Whilst Virgin have not denied the cost was in order of "thousands of pounds" to rectify as we were told by the engineers, Virgin have now told us that the cost was "minimal". Virgin also advised us that this work was "routine work they regularly carry out as part of their network management service".

StPetersNM.COM protecting the identities of sources...

Rebecca Burke said that she was very concerned that the engineers had given us this information as Virgin Media don't wish an impression other than that the incident was of a more isolated nature involving damage in one particular cabinet to be given. She added that the engineers who we declined to name may face disciplinary action, the details of which StPetersNM.com is trying to ascertain.

Another engineer whose identity StPetersNM.com will not disclose told us that the only cable that will stand up to these rats now is armoured cable but that it is unlikely that Virgin Media will bring that into the neighbourhood due to cost considerations.

Update 1: Late Tuesday 17th Feb 2009 Media Relations officer, Rebecca Burke of Virgin Media phoned STPETERSNM.COM and admitted to us that Virgin Media had indeed called upon assistance of Rentokil to deal with rats and mice damaging its telecom's infrastructure in St Peters although she still maintained that she had no access to the information we obtained first hand, that this was relatively costly problem affecting hundreds of metres of cabling across a wide area of St Peters Neighbourhood.

Update 2: Thursday 19th February 2009: Virgin contacted us today to tell us that "the information we were given was inaccurate". Media Relations officer, Rebecca Burke further stated "This was an isolated incident which affected one telecommunications cabinet in Pluto Street, Leicester. Subsequent checks were being carried out on our network yesterday, but no further evidence found. Just four customers were impacted "

Additionally she said "Rentokil was called to treat the area as we take the health and safety of our staff seriously. Once the cabinet and local cables had been checked and traps laid, repairs were undertaken and service restored."

Inconsistencies and Disciplinary Action...

STPETERSNM.COM requested further information from Virgin Media to clarify apparent discrepancies between what we were told by the engineers who we were told faced possible disciplinary action for talking to us and the suggestion from the Media Relations office at Virgin Media that it was an isolated issue.

Update: Thursday 19th Feb 2009: Rebecca Burke of Virgin Media stated "With regards your disciplinary question, we will not be pursuing this matter further internally".

Clearly this did not confirm or deny if disciplinary action was taken internally against those who spoke to us, nor was she able to provide information if Virgin Media pressed for disciplinary action to be applied externally by sub contractors.

(STPETERSNM.COM and the Neighbourhood Monitoring Network of other neighbourhood groups throughout the UK to which we are linked will back and support anyone who talks to us on or off the record about the issues in our neighbourhoods.)

 

Has your Virgin Media telephone service been suffering problems lately?

StPetersNM.COM is now trying to ascertain an accurate impression of the true scale of this problem in St Peters \ Highfields Leicester.

If you are in St Peters Leicester and your Virgin Media telephone service had issues lately that may have been caused by rodents damaging the network cabling please let our team know.

Also if you live anywhere else in the UK but have knowledge of rodents damaging your telecom's \ internet infrastructure please also get in touch.

We would be pleased to hear if you have had similar issues with an alternative telecom's service such as British Telecom.

Article in Progress...

Article Written by Mel
Photography by Mel
Date Written Feb 27th 2009
Date last Modified Feb 18th 2009
Status: Article in Progress

 

Highcross Leicester - What is it? and how might it benefit the people of St Peters?

 

STPETERSNM.COM reveals the first video footage of the inside of the Highcross Leicester online.

Video Coming soon...

We are pleased to reveal to you an exclusive video insight of the inside of the Highcross Leicester.

The film seen here represents the very first online video revealing the inside of the Highcross Leicester in Leicester's Highcross Quarter as seen by a limited group of 1000 Highcross Leicester tour participants on June 1st 2008.

What is the Highcross Leicester?

Leicester's Highcross Leicester is a £350 Million expansion of the existing retail centre we know as The Shires. But it is so much more than a shopping centre.

It is classed as a multiple purpose development incorporating, residential, leisure, entertainment and retail elements into its scope.

Originally, it was to be called the Highcross Quarter but for a rather unfortunate naming mishap and domain name battle between Hammerson Plc the principal owners of the Highcross Leicester and a group of ladies who happened to be witches. :o) (For full details of the naming controversy See Highcross

What does it mean to St Peters residents?

Potentially, aside from a great place to go to shop, dine, enjoy a relaxed coffee or meet people, it also represents a staggering scope of employment opportunities.

This is recognised by Hammerson and the team and City Strategy so much so that they have participated in Jobs Fair and Employment road shows here twice in the last year with a view to registering and introducing St Peters people to the employment opportunity paths open to them as a result of the development.

Highfields Centre & Litter

St Peters NM has asked the Highfields Centre management to clear, and to clear regularly the litter on the perimetre of its Car Park in Stoughton Street.

To illustrate this issue we have produced some digital media that shows the area of concern that we have been monitoring now for 12 months since we discussed the problem with them last year. (See slide shows and video digital media here...)

TWINNING...

After months of behind the scenes hard work stpetersnm.com is pleased to announce the launch of our new Twinning Partnerships Initiative with Web oriented neighbourhood groups for other neighbourhoods around the UK.

The revolutionary concept is based on the idea that a number of benefits can be realised by geographically diverse neighbourhood groups coming together to share ideas and solutions as well as publicity of our respective issues and successes.

Read More....

Article Written by Mel
Photography by Mel
Date Written Jan 27th 2009
Date last Modified Jan 27th 2009
Status: Article in Progress