Residents of Foresthall Park and Mountfitchet Estate have raised issues over access safety for pedestrians to and from their area of Stansted. They have copied me a letter to Essex County Council concerning the planned new St. Mary’s primary school on Foresthall Park. The letter can be read here: FHP Letter 20th March 2011. 

What these residents say is right. Action is needed in the next year to improve access and safety for pedestrians. I have written to the county council in support of their plea for action. I will also be speaking with planning and housing officers at the district council to start the process. Can we pull this off within 15 months?

Money exists – if there is the will – to start to improve safety on Church Road. There is planning (Section 106) money. Next month the council will start to receive the coalition’s New Homes Bonus. As Stansted is one of the places where most new homes have been built in the past two years, Stansted should get a lion’s share of the cash.

This is where Luke Felton was sent flying by a car because there is no pavement.

This afternoon I talked with Luke Felton, a boy whose arm was fractured and face bruised by a passing car at one of the danger spots along Church Road, with his mother Patsy Holden. We were meeting up with the Herts and Essex Observer, which is running with the story. See my earlier postings.

The photograph shows Luke, Miss Holden and me at the spot where Luke was hit by a car a few months ago. Luke had come out on the footpath from the estate and just turned left in the camera direction when he was sent flying. This is the spot where a new roadside pavement should start.