COUNCIL chiefs have backed calls from a Pershore councillor to end the long suffering for town residents who have been left without footpaths out of their road for almost four years.
Furious residents on Choules Close off Rebecca Road spoke out last month about the lack of a footpath linking it to Worcester Road which meant they couldn’t leave the estate safely.
The plans for the development were conditional on the provision of footpaths to link to the existing paths and a new bus stop.
But nearly four years after the houses were first occupied the paths and bus stop have not been built.
Coun Val Wood raised the problems faced by homeowners during a Wychavon District Council meeting last Wednesday (October 10) and called on highways chiefs to end the impasse as soon as possible.
“This motion is as a result of the frustration felt not only by residents but all those involved; councillors, officers, Redrow Homes, County Council highways and Ringway who seem to all have had difficulty in communicating with each other,” she said. “We are now almost there, although more nagging and pushing is still required.
“The residents have for too long had to risk walking on the busy carriageway on Rebecca Road and the Worcester Road and it is unacceptable they continue to do this for another longer particularly with the looming risk of winter and the dark nights.”
Highways chiefs have expressed concern the introduction of another set of temporary traffic lights to allow work to take place could increase traffic problems in town, with temporary lights on Station Road still in place.
But Coun Wood called on Wychavon chiefs to speak with their county counterparts to get the work under way as soon as possible and to minimise the impact of any overlap in sets of lights.
Choules Close was named after Claude Stanley Choules, born in Pershore, who at the time of his death was the oldest English combat veteran of the First World War, having served with the Royal Navy from 1915 until 1926.
Coun Bradley Thomas backed Coun Wood and said: “It’s out of town, and it’s isolated. If residents want to venture into Pershore on a cold, dark evening they take on significant risk to themselves by stepping into the public highway.”
The motion was passed unanimously and highways chiefs have confirmed they hope work will begin later this month or early next month on a footpath from Rebecca Road.
