Residents are very worried about the safety of pedestrians (and particularly the elderly folk from London Court, Albany Court and Victoria Court) on the stretch of London Road between Sandfield Road and Horwood Close and beyond. I have been out to look at this and am concerned about the safety of pedestrians coming out of the Dial House and other B&B establishments as there is no obvious means of crossing the London Road to a place of safety.

I reported this last week to the officer managing the London Road redevelopment project and here is his response:

All these works are being carried out as part of the London Road
Corridor scheme.
Most of the construction work is located in and around the footway /
kerbline area and impacts on the carriageway and footway areas.
As you will appreciate we need to consider all safety issues when
carrying out the works and protect the public by setting up and signing
safe routes to follow. Where possible we will try and maintain a through
route on the side where the work is being undertaken but in this instant
the work involves the refurbishment of a gas main in the footway area
from Headley Way to Osler Road followed by changes to the kerbline and
resurfacing of the footway.
The safest way to carry out this work and provide a safe route for
pedestrians was to close the footway and provide temporary pedestrian
crossings at each end to allow safe crossing of the main road.
Signs have been erected informing pedestrians that the footway is closed
and directing them across the crossing as the route to follow.

I can not physically force a member of the public to follow the route
but hopefully common sense will prevail and they will refrain from
walking in the road.

If you have concerns about this, and we know many of you do, please contact David or me, or ring the County Council on 01865 792422 and ask for Mike Collins!