Elderly cannot afford to wait

From the archive, first published Thursday 20th Nov 2003.

With reference to a letter in your paper last week namely (Did I miss it) - I must have missed it too.

Last May, after being mugged in the underpass on the bus station at the age of 88 I appealed to Dudley Council to close all underpasses and put a pedestrian crossing on the ring road, close to the bus station, where everyone, including the elderly, infirm, wheelchairs and people with prams could get to the shops etc in safety.

I was given hope that this would happen.

I know the engineers were consulted about this possibility months ago. Since then a big silence.

What is all the delay about? Is such an undertaking beyond the capabilities of our engineers or is our council thinking of the cost?

If that is so, then they need to get their priorities right, the safety of the tax payers should be paramount.

A lot of our money has been spent on so called art placed here and there on the Dudley bypass. Most of them are a joke, but we are not laughing.

Give us that crossing now, giving us the freedom to shop and go to many things that go in our town hall in the evenings, without the risk of being mugged or worse, in these dangerous and evil smelling underpasses.

We cannot afford to wait any longer, time is what old people don't have, we have suffered this state of things long enough.

Name and address supplied

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