Road is not the worst

MANY of your readers will have been angered to read that the hostility between the Conservative-controlled, Littlehampton-based district council and Bognor has reached new depths. One can only imagine the excitement in her voice as Gillian Brown announced that her council had obtained Â£6m to boost unemployment in Bognor, that unsavoury outpost of the Arun empire: second story, front page.

Turn over to page 2 and it gets worse! Cardinals Drive is an accident blackspot, specifically its junction with Link Way?

Well, I can remember a year or two ago when a senior citizen drove into the back of a parked car, pushing it several yards towards Nyetimber Lane, but between these incidents?

Conversely, the regular off-road sorties made from the Pagham Road by cars between the Royal Oak and Sefter Road and the almost weekly ‘car in ditch’ between the same pub and road winding up to the Pagham Rife have escaped your radar!

Yes, the road surface of Cardinals Drive is a disgrace and yes, a number of vehicles do exceed the speed limit when using it.

The ‘speeding’ was raised with WSCC some six years ago who arranged a week’s electronic

survey. WSCC subsequently reported ‘no problem’ as the average speed was 29.9 mph!

The support documentation showed that nearly ten per cent of vehicles exceeded 40 mph and a dozen exceeded 50. Possibly as a result of the road surface damage in the past six months, it APPEARS that fewer vehicles now travel at excessive speeds over it, but the issue certainly hasn’t resolved itself.

Your reporter is right to have recognised the interest our county councillor, Mike Coleman, has taken in the issue; he even replied last Sunday to an email sent on the subject the previous day!

On Monday mid-morning, a Highways vehicle appeared carrying men wearing McNicholas flourescent jackets, who then marked out areas of the road surface for further attention and scattered topsoil, for a second time, over several sections of grass verge. There were even traces of grass seed in one area.

I suspect ‘local residents met county councillor Mike Coleman on Monday’ the week, rather than seconds, before the arrival of ‘Highways Maintenance’. Miracles tomorrow Mr Coleman?

Thanks, Observer, for taking an interest in us.

Don Lambert

Cardinals Drive,

Pagham