Tempers flare as neighbours join Living Streets walk tour
Tuesday 31st August 2010, 11:30AM BST.
Living Streets secretary Pat Wisher makes a point on the route. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 1019044)
EMOTIONS ran high yesterday when angry neighbours turned up to a Living Streets tour of the new walking route to Baubigny Schools.
One called Living Streets secretary Pat Wisher a ‘cheeky witch’ as she tried to allay fears.
The road safety group had invited people to see work that had been done and discuss any fears or potential problems about the safety of the walk for schoolchildren.
The walking route has become the centre of a row between Living Streets and businesses at Pitronnerie Road Industrial Estate.
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This is ridiculous; makes Guernsey look full of ignorant people! What can they possibly object to?
If you live near a school kids are going to walk by your house! Can’t help that.
It’s not safe? Well it’s not even up to Living Streets to find safe routes, they are just trying to help out and advertise what there is there and campaign for more safety so that we won’t see street after street of fat kids sat in cars in queues around the school(something else the residents will soon enough be complaining about – too many cars!)
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i agree rebecca – this does have some risk but for once in a lifetime i agree 100% with today’s press editorial. this is worth a go and the opponents are to me not interested in the kids’ safety, but are more obsessed with not having the occasional crisp bag or loud voice drift into their back of beyond back gardens. shame on them.
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I presume wellingtons are part of the school uniform for winter, as even after the rain last week the area was flooded and very muddy.
What opponents are worried about are dangers. There are unused greenhouses along the route and during windy weather glass flies. If a child is hit by flying glass who is liable? Living Streets?
Will the children remember to close the gates along the way which are there to prevent animals reaching the main road? Will the children tease the animals they encounter in fields adjoining the route? Horses in a field not far from there were “egged” a few weeks ago so it is not a ridiculous suggestion. Will it be policed to ensure motor bikes are not ridden through? It may be aimed at children walking and on push bikes but you know what teenagers can be like?
These are just some of the foreseen problems, and before anyone comments, I do not live in the area
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Landowner: your comments suggest you want an outrightban on children, or perhaps anyone at all, using the path. Oh, and I walk my children to school every day in a completely different part of the island, and most days through the winter we all where wellies, as it is wet even on pavements!!! The children’s shoes are carried in their backpacks (as are mine as wellies don’t really tick the box in terms of “office smart” attire) and we change when we get to our respective destinations.
It seems you are on a mission to imagine problems for no good reason.
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Belinda – A complete ban on children – now there is an idea worth consideration.
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belinda is spot on. landowner’s child-fearing worries apply surely to any route, private or public in this island. how many kids get soaked to the skin on pavements by selfish motorists choosing not to slow down or avoid flooded roads and so on. derelict vineries are all over the shop, many still fronting main roads. and animals and gates are not confined to this new route. give it a chance surely?
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Rebecca, you contradict yourself in your own post, surely if Living Streets are campaigners for safety, then surely any route that they suggest should be safe….. no??
This is the same living streets that is now backtracking on their original promise of making things safer and putting the onus on the parents.
“parents will drop their kids off on the industrial estate at their own risk” was a quote attributed to Living Streets that I read last week.
Hmmm, this is a “safety group”, that has suceeded in making things more dangerous for kids that choose to use this route, now they come out and say its the parents responsibility if the kids get hurt.
Well far be it from me to say, but if they had kept their nose out in the first place, we wouldnt have this mess, (literally……. in the winter the kids are going to be in a right mess after walking through that bog)
Its a joke really, this has been a mis-managed mess from day one, a bunch of do-gooders with far too much time on their hands getting involved in something in which they have patently failed to properly plan before they jumped with both feet and no thought into this saga.
It also makes me laugh how now suddenly in a fit of “getting on side”-itis, suddenly if you oppose the idea, you oppose safetey.
This must be the second biggest load of rubbish I’ve read in a while (in first place is the original proposal)and smacks of populism. Living Streets are, to anyone with an ounce of common sense, making this school route a heck of a lot worse and more dangerous to boot. But if you oppose their plan, i.e you are pro common sense, suddenly you are anti safety.
I’ve said this all along, their Hearts are in the right place……. their brains arent though!
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Thursday’s headline ‘Lifestyle leads to a diabetes timebomb’. Are we suprised when we look at the negative reaction introducing a walking route has?
It is interesting the way the nay sayers are trying to use the excuse of a ‘muddy path’ to detract from the project when they are the ones that prevented the path from being repaired and drained. Living Streets had the work all in hand through one of their sponsors, Falla’s, who were going to do the work but were prevented from doing so.
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Can I take this opportunity to thank the well to do people living in the upper parishes who do so like to tell the less fortunate islanders how to lead their lives.
I am so pleased that our inability to look after ourselves gives the priveleged section of our small society something worthwhile to do.
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Belinda
I presume that if you walk with your children they are not yet at a secondary school. There is no way any normal teenager would arrive at school wearing wellingtons then change into school shoes. They would be teased mercilessly for arriving in such footwear. Pavements are wet, and motorists also splash pedestrians, but they are not inches deep in water and mud.
Time will tell in all of this, judging by the first 2 days of term the children would rather ride their bikes along proper roads
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Come on Town Dweller – we townies know that those in the upper parishes only got there because we threw them out of here, couldn’t stand the sound of their egos hitting the decks everytime someone mentioned the war eh?!
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How come the children at this school get a “safe” walking route and a lower speed limit than other schools? How many other schools have been given an off road route to walk? Why is the speed limit on mainly one way roads only 20mph when far busier 2 way roads near other schools are 25mph?
Surely all our children are as important so the limit should be reduced on roads near all schools?
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Landowner.
….. and nor does this walking route need to be ‘inches deep in mud and water’. It only is because the draining work was prevented from being done by those who didn’t want to see a walking route there.
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I think Mrs Williams should make a public apology to Pat Wisher for her disrespectful outburst.
Not a good example is it on how to react towards someone who addresses u in a correct and respectful manner, it be may old fashioned to some to be addressed as “madam” but it’s still polite! No wonder a lot of kids have no respect for others if this is the kind of behaviour they witness from people who should be setting an example!
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Rosie
By building the school where they have and raising the school land by so much they have already created flooding in areas that never flooded before. If they raised the height of this track where would the excess water drain? I can’t imagine they would put in proper drainage as there is no main drain in the Baubigny area. I guess that once again it would just pour into the surrounding land.If they used tarmac it would encourage people with vehicles to use it, thereby making it less safe for pedestrians and pedal cyclists
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Landowner
Agreed….. it was a bonkers place to put the school.
Not all the track is muddy. Where it is, there is a douit that Fallas were going to drain the excess water into. Tarmac was never a consideration.
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