Here is a story that arrived by e-mail from Caroline Simpson about Myddleton Road, on Christmas Eve 2013.

A very odd thing happened on that road on Christmas Eve – yet another one!

I was doing my final pre-Christmas shop down Myddleton Road just after 2.00.
I had worried that the violent winds in the night would bring down no 99, George Moore’s shop, so on the way back I went down the road to see.

Surprisingly no further damage there, but on the pavement and road outside no 110, Express Pizza, there was a heap of the crumpled remains of a flat roof – roofing felts, asphalt, timber with big nails – masses of dangerous and heavy stuff.

And opposite, outside no 115 were a lot of broken ceramic roof tiles which had fallen from somewhere. Cars were having to slow down to pass, people were stepping over and through the debris. It needed to be cleared away to make access safe for everyone.

Mr Mistry from the TV repair shop said that he had taken a ladder to see where it had come from – and it was clear that it had not come from the fronts of any of the Myddleton road properties. What must have happened is that the wind lifted it from the flat roof of a building somewhere between the south terrace of the road and the north side of Thorold Road – perhaps the roof of one of the workshops, or an extension. The wind had torn it off, and lifted it up like a flying carpet, and then it flew over the terrace and was dumped by the wind outside no 110, knocking down some roof tiles as it descended. It had landed on a Mercedes parked on the road at about 3am.(see photo from @BOPCoffee via Twitter).

The police and fire services came in the night and the car was removed, but all the debris left behind.

For reasons quite beyond me, none of the people I spoke to appear to have contacted the council, or the police about removing the dangerous stuff. And although many fit, male local residents were not working that day, and could have cleared the mess to one side with some heavy gloves and a good broom – no-one had done so and it was clear that it was not going to happen by ‘community action’. At about 2.30 I tried to phone the safer neighbourhood team but only got the answer phone, so I sent a text to Cllr Demirci’s phone telling him about the dangerous mess and asking him to contact someone to clear it. I got a speedy reply that he had contacted Emergency Planning and they were dealing with it. Great!

At 5.00 I phoned the Pizza shop just to check. No, it had not been cleared. It was now dark and even more dangerous. Again I contacted Cllr Demirci – it transpired that the contractor had not turned up as promised. Again he tried, and council officers came down and ensured that the work was done and by 6.30 the pavement was clear, the debris all fenced off and it was safe for Christmas.

Thank you to Cllr Demirci and council officers for working late on Christmas Eve to make the street safe.

May I suggest that anyone with properties on the south side of that road, the north side of Thorold, and any in between take a good look at their flat roofs.

Can we learn from this? Yes, it is a street worth fighting for, but it is a pity that those who live and work on it could not work together during that day to get this sorted. Let us hope that in 2014 local residents and workers get to feel more positive and involved in their street - that is what needs to happen.