Working class communities on the Northside of Cork City should use the run-up to the council elections in June to put pressure on City Hall and local councillors for much-needed improvements.

In Mount Farran Place, Blackpool, the Housing Department removed faulty guttering chutes from some of the flats last summer but never bothered replacing them! Other chutes are blocked. Heavy rainfall causes all kinds of grief for residents. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the housing maintenance crisis in the city.

In Gurrananbraher the volume and speed of traffic on Cathedral Rd. is very worrying. How long will it be before a child is injured or killed? At least two zebra crossings with traffic lights are needed. Traffic calming measures are also needed on the residential sidestreets where the parking crisis and the building of new houses at the top of Gurranabraher are making cars using the streets for short-cuts an even bigger problem than before.

At Mount Eden Rise, Blarney St. the City Council's neglect of this estate is shocking with repairs needed for footpaths and walls. In particular, the wall overlooking the carpark is way too low on the estate side and it would be very easy for a child to fall over it and down 20 feet to a hard carpark surface.

On Dublin St., Blackpool and Lower Dublin Hill a City Council streetscape alteration work must take the community's need for parking space and traffic calming into account. A special area for residentsâ parking should be allocated and a pedestrian crossing with traffic lights provided near the grotto. Residents should remember the lessons of SunValley Drive last summer where a no-nonsense residentsâ protest forced the City Council to take some action on the rats crisis.

A similar approach from residents mixed with the threat of withholding votes from city councillors who haven't delivered can force change on these fronts now.