LETTER: Happy to join the inspection

I originally stated to the Observer on May 29 there are many in Chichester who could easily recognise that their present poor state along with various designed-in hazards, are matters of urgent concern.

It is not only a case of civic pride to remedy these but also of our two authorities’ responsibility for community health and safety.

The fact that, you quote WSCC as saying, it has ‘received no claims in respect of slips, trips or falls’, might be construed more as the council’s good fortune than as evidence of timely management.

One therefore hopes that in the context of Chichester’s significantly visible elderly population, the inspecting engineers will have been well briefed in consideration of age related general physical instability, visual field and eye focusing problems as well as peripheral foot neuropathy in which varying surfaces are a challenge to maintaining balance.

In these respects the example of North Street, as already noted, is notoriously unsatisfactory. Abrupt changes from fissured Tarmacadam to projecting cobbles to worn brick pavers to infinite lengths of uneven stone slab pavement with open joints and raised edges, are really bad news for the less than fully fit.

Which is why I would be happy to accompany the inspecting engineer on their next visit and indicate specifics, starting from the St Peters junction, say, down to the Cross as a sample study. Hopefully there might well be others interested in joining this exercise, too: so now it is over to the county council to respond, I think, and to fix the date.