I live in Ferry Road and frequently walk into town along the river and over the unmanned level crossing. This brings me out on the pavement by the zebra crossing next to the roundabout on Winchelsea Road. I usually cross this one onto the pavement by the bridge and across the next one on to the pavement by the shops. I return home the same way.
I take care in walking over the one across the Winchelsea Road, when I return from town. Yesterday afternoon (February 28), I stepped on to it and started to walk across, as one car had stopped. As I got to the middle of the road, a vehicle came from my left, without stopping or looking. Had I not been watching carefully, I would have been knocked over.
This particular zebra crossing by the path to the river is not safe. I never step onto it until the car nearest me has stopped, as often drivers either don’t see pedestrians waiting or don’t bother to stop, but luckily this is the first time someone has driven right in front of me when I was half way across.
I think the problem arises because drivers are coming along the Winchelsea road on to the roundabout and so are looking further ahead, not at the road in front of them. Can I ask all local drivers to remember to look? Tourists are not going to be so aware of the problem as locals.
If I really was a zebra, perhaps they would all notice?
[Editor’s note: Until February 27 the paint on this crossing was so worn it was hardly visible and there were, so far as we were aware, no immediate plans to renew it. Two weeks ago a near-by resident wrote to our MP about it and she, in turn, wrote to the Highways department of the county council. Within a very short space of time the work was done. There are, of course, county council elections coming up soon……..or am I just being too cynical?]
Photo: Gillian Roder
……likewise the white line at the end of Harbour Road, at the junction with New Winchelsea Road has “disappeared” over the past year. It’s all too easy to quite unintentionally stop too far into the junction, risking a collision .
Philip, I have reported your concerns to ESCC and the lines will be be replaced very soon as will the ones on the Tilling green estate reported at the Town meeting
Editor you are not cynical you are factually wrong the crossings referred to are Highway England’s responsibility and were reported in January and after more prompting were repaired as described
The Leader of the County Council will be aware that the state of Deadman’s Lane was mentioned at the Town Meeting, but only in relation to potholes. Something much more darkly dangerous about the Death Strip was not brought up at the meeting.
On the South Side of the dangerously named Deadman’s Lane there is a tangle of rusting iron spikes and rolls of barbed wire that abut and in some places actually stick out into the public highway. There is no footpath to keep pedestrians or cars away from a streetscape once common to Berlin but absent in Britain except up this ‘charming’ lane!
Something has to be done to the vicious verge before it results in a serious injury or worse. Strangely the ESCC Steward responsible for this road has been to closely inspect the road many times and done nothing about it and the owner doesn’t seem to give a fig either!
Since ESCC seems to be unfamiliar with the Highways Act here is some guidance.
According to the Highways Act 1980, Section 164…
“Where on land adjoining a highway there is a fence made with barbed wire … in or on it, and the wire is a nuisance to the highway, a competent authority may by notice served on the occupier of the land require him to abate the nuisance within … if it is likely to be injurious to persons or animals lawfully using the highway [remove the barbed wire]”.
Also on http://www.mfll.co.uk/you_and_the_law.htm , it says … “in practice most Local Authority Highway Depts consider that barbed wire lower than EIGHT feet from the ground could be a nuisance to highway users”.
The Act neglects to mention serried ranks of sharpened, rusting spikes sticking out from the verge into the Highway like a Normandy beach in 1944 as whoever drew up the law probably didn’t consider such a thing would go on in the UK today!
Anyway, Rye’s answer to the Korean DMZ or Demilitarized Zone, the RMZ (RyeMilitarised Zone) needs to be take out with extreme prejudice!
Over to you Cllr Glazier!
Another place where the road markings have almost disappeared is where Landgate exits onto the A268. This is probably why non-locals, approaching from Skinner’s roundabout, occasionally turn up there. The bend makes the “No-Entry” signs hard to see and prominent road markings would help avoid this problem.
I did notify the authorities of this more than a year ago having seen 2 instances of cars going the wrong way in a week, but the markings have still to be repainted and have, of course, further deteriorated in the meanwhile.