Benches along Churchill Boulevard in Greenfield Park are now more accessible. But that wasn’t the case for the past couple of days.
The benches were fenced in, leaving them off limits for those wanting to use them.
“Our neighbours do sit there, even when it’s weather like this so it’s a bit of a shame that we can’t sit,” said Myriam Faucher, the owner of “Les Ravitailleurs” on Churchill Blvd.
After Global News aired a story on the issue, most of the benches have now been freed from their cage.
The city of Longueuil says it was the snow removal contractor who decided to fence in the benches to avoid crushing them, like last year.
“In previous years, the contractor put pickets in order to see where the benches were when they were all covered in snow and it still got broken,” the head of Longueuil’s public affairs Louis-Pascal Cyr told Global News.
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The contractor would be on the hook for the cost of any damages and with each bench costing around $4,000, the city says the company took it upon itself to put up the fences.
“We’ve intervened and we’ve asked them to certainly make them visible but to continue to allow citizens to use those benches,” Cyr explained.
“I’m happy they cleared the benches for the seniors, however, I’m very unhappy that it happened in the first place,” said Wade Wilson, a borough councillor for Greenfield Park.
Wilson says more communication between the borough and the city can help avoid situations like these.
“We’re very happy that Global came out and we had the situation rectified, unfortunately again, it shouldn’t take the media to resolve our issues.”
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