Justifying The Unjustifiable

A conumdrum: a council builds 6 affordable semi-detached houses each designed, according to signage at the development, to accommodate 5 people in extremely close proximity to each other on a one track country lane in a poor state of repair, with no street lights, and no footpath and in its infinite wisdom the speed limit of 40mph is to ... stay the same!

A right-minded person might consider that the decision not to reduce the limit as churlish especially taking into account, and I draw the readers attention to the opening post of this blog and the video evidence there, the hazard that is presented by the very hidden nature of the development with the prospect of 18 or more children living there. The gardens are small and with facilities in Gedney Hill amounting to a big, fat zero regarding play areas then it doesn't take much guess work to come to the conclusion children will be playing in the street.

Residents can see the danger in that speed limit, the MP, Mr John Hayes, who visited residents recently can see the danger but strangely the Highways department at Lincolnshire County Council has adopted a more sanguine approach, laid back to the point of unconscious on the issue which will be shown in later posts.

In the meantime I will just round off this opener by saying that earlier this year I checked out RoSPA's website in view of this looming 'big mistake'. It was here that I found guidelines that could be followed in pursuit of getting change where traffic hazards warrant it. They suggested asking representatives of Highways and the Chief Constable's office to attend a site meeting to review matters. This I did. Neither was interested. The Chief Constable's office wrote to say, and I paraphrase, "you've mistaken us for people who care" and Highways just made no reply at all on the issue of a site meeting - just that the limit stays at 40mph and deal with it.

It was the frustration of being treated as something unpleasant on the underside of LCC's shoe that I put together an open letter to the local press, MP Mr John Hayes and Lincolnshire County Council's Highways department. That letter forms the next post which is followed by some weird responses in subsequent posts. So watch this space.