Zebra saved from floods

For the past few years residents of Powerscroft Road and nearby streets have faced a giant puddle -- OK, a small lake -- when they headed for the park after rain via this zebra crossing. (For those who don't come this way in the wet, it's at the 5-way junction of Powerscroft, Millfields and Chatsworth Roads, which is tricky enough as it is, especially if you're not in your nimblest years, or crossing with a child.)

Road contractors created the water feature when they filled in a gutter during the last redesign of the junction, so that the water no longer flowed to the drain intended to catch it. They left the gutter nice and horizontal, apart from a decorative little upward slope, which isn't really the point with gutters. Emails to the Streetscene project manager at the time got no joy.

But we now have a rather more responsive set-up at Hackney Streetscene, at least as far as Millfields is concerned. When I raised it again recently, they promised to fix it by mid September. So two provisional cheers, saving the third for when the work is done.