Political litter louts given a mandate to return to the top of every pole

GARDENERS, I feel, fall not only victim to every life form that creeps, crawls, flies, sucks and stings, but to pests of their own kind, too.

When you live on a busy main road, the problem is compounded, especially during elections. You see, I cannot understand why anyone not living in my area (and perhaps yours) can come along and plaster the pole outside the front gate with a multitude of election posters, making the whole place look as if a circus is coming to town.

Isn’t every area of this country littered enough with rubbish and dirt without these vandals adding to it? Doesn’t my area get enough bad press (in relation to littering) without these fly-posting idiots adding to it? Does anyone agree, or am I totally alone? Long before the day of reckoning arrives, who has to sweep all the torn posters when wind and rain has blown them down, and who eventually has to remove them for binning? Not those who put them up, I can assure you, but the residents.

I certainly have to get out there time and time again to clean what has not been of my creation and it’s just not good enough any more.

Even when the posters are eventually taken down (as required by law), who is responsible for the plastic ties that remain? Are we are never going to learn about litter in this country?

The galling thing is that if I, as a gardening writer, publicise a Government- approved weedkiller for controlling some of the tougher, more invasive garden and roadside weeds, I can be assured of a bevy of letters condemning my promotion of ‘toxic’ chemicals.

This morning then, I would ask all election agents to respect the rights of property-owners countrywide. I prompt them like a gentle fall of snow and not like a driving storm of hail.

Do not devalue any area with posters and unsightly ties, for true liberty exists in the privilege of enjoying our own rights, not in the destruction of the rights of others. And the decor and clean appearance of our streets and parks is indeed our right.

Charlie Wilkins

‘Villa Marie’

Shamrock Park

Mayfield

Cork