UK NEWS

14 MILES ON THE BUS JUST TO GET ACROSS THE ROAD

Nancy Underwood by the busy road yesterday

Friday March 12,2010

By Emma Rowley

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A GRANDMOTHER makes a 14-mile trip to reach the post office opposite her home – because there is no pedestrian crossing on the busy main road.

Traffic is so bad on the A-road through Nancy Underwood’s village that she takes a 90-minute journey using four buses just to get to the other side.

Partially blind, she walks with a frame and would have to navigate a constant flow of cars if she attempted to cross to the post office or shop in her tiny Dorset village of Chideock.

Mrs Underwood, 89, who moved to Chideock from Maidenhead, Kent, in 2005, has found her system the only way to cope with the road.

“It’s dreadful,” she said. “In the summer the traffic is absolutely non-stop with a large number of heavy lorries. I find it quite frightening and alarming.

“It really is very difficult to get across. It’s not a good road and we don’t even have a pavement all the way down.”

To make her gruelling journey to the other side of the A35, Mrs Underwood boards a bus to the market town of Bridport three miles away, where she can use a pedestrian crossing.

She then makes a return journey and stops off in Chideock opposite her house, so she can visit the shop.

To return home, the former primary school teacher takes the next bus four miles in the other direction to the coastal village of Charmouth. She then uses another pedestrian crossing and completes the final leg with a fourth bus which takes her back to Chideock.

The weekly shop in Bridport is equally challenging for the grandmother of five, with the detour adding an hour to her trip.

Her daughter Kathy Scott, who runs a bed and breakfast in Chideock, said: “For elderly people and children the road has been a real hazard. You can stand for 20 minutes and there won’t be a break in the traffic. It’s a miracle there hasn’t been a terrible accident.”

There is some hope for Mrs Underwood – her local council is planning to install a pedestrian crossing in her village, which has a population of 570.

Officials have used a compulsory purchase order to buy land near the post office and work is due to start this year.

Mrs Underwood added: “There are a lot of people who have objected to the crossing because they think the traffic won’t run as smoothly and will be noisy.

“But this crossing will make life a lot easier for everyone so I am very glad.”

A spokesman for the Highways Agency said: “There was a long legal wrangle over the purchase of land and that has caused a significant delay.”

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