Star date: 20th April 2016  

PENDLETON TOGETHER'S ROTTEN ROCKERY WITH ADDED DANGER

Despite Pendleton Together priding itself on its "garden landscaping" for tenants who have had their houses refurbished, one garden in Liverpool Street has what looks like building rubble from the nearby demolished houses splattered over its back yard.

"I don't like the garden" says six year old Ruby who stays with her grandmother at the house "I fall over all the time... it's dangerous, I've cut my knees".

Full details here...

Pendleton Together, the company leading the £650million makeover of Pendleton, prides itself on its green credentials and its `fab-ness', pushed by Salford celebrities.

In the latest issue of its newsletter there's a features on `seedbombing' at Lark Hill Community School, the Peter Hook and Mike Sweeney event at Salford Arts Theatre, Jeremy Corbyn endorsing the regeneration at Pendleton Together's HQ, and Happy Mondays' Bez creating a forest garden on the site of the old Woolpack pub in a `guerrilla gardening' event.

Further up the road, however, on Liverpool Street, Pendleton Together has been doing a spot of what's more like `gorilla gardening', as Lesley Edwards' back garden is strewn with what can only be described as building rubble, that looks like it's come from the scrapings of the demolished houses a few hundred yards away.

Lesley has bad arthritis and can't maintain a grassed garden, so Pendleton Together gave her, what it calls in its promise of free external improvements to homes, `garden landscaping'.

"My mother didn't expect it to be like that!" says Leanne Edwards, who brings her children to stay and play at the house "We put my little boy out there in his walker last week but just had to watch him all the time in case he went on the gravel. And my daughter, Ruby, is forever falling over. She's got a bad foot so it's dangerous for her too."

Ruby, age six, agrees... "I don't like the garden" she says "I fall over all the time...it's dangerous, I've cut my knees".

The Pendleton Together hype just doesn't ring true with this family... "They said they were coming back to finish it but they haven't, and that was a year ago" says Leanne "They even said my mother could pay for some flags and then pay someone else to do it, but the quote you get is £600 and she can't afford that.

"I wouldn't mind, but my mum's got arthritis of the spine, knees and wrist, she's got vertigo and she's forever passing out, yet she still goes to work to pay her rent" Leanne adds "She should be entitled to have jobs finished. There's skirting boards upstairs that they've still not done but the main priority is the garden. Even the neighbours have complained about the disgusting way they've left it. It's rotten ...horrible..."

Perhaps Jeremy Corbyn would like to visit the real Pendleton next time he's about...

• The Salford Star asked Pendleton Together for a comment but the company didn't respond.