I’m always composing letters I know actually I won’t send. The other day it was to our newspaper; there were pictures on adjacent pages which I found most distasteful in juxtaposition to each other. One was about young women who had become jihadis, and the extent that they would go to in order to further the cause… even if it meant inflicting horrific injuries and death upon innocent people. Opposite that was a catwalk with impossibly slim models stalking along, watched by people with vacuous eyes.
Another letter I was going to write to the newspaper was concerning a story about how some students were going to University without the faintest idea of how to cook the most basic things, even an omelette was beyond them. The article seemed to suggest it was the fault of school’s and the education system… Come on! Where are the parents in this? Shouldn’t it be the parents job to prepare their young people for Uni, and what about the kids themselves… they know they are going to be living away from home, have they not sense enough to practice before they go – and good heavens! There are enough TV programmes/books/YouTube videos to help out even the most dunderhead of a student… it is not the fault of the schools they were at!
Today as I was driving through our village I was writing about the dreadful parking situation on the local roads… I was only writing in my head, of course!
Dear Sir, A correspondent recently proposed a one-way system round the village of Uphill. I am a resident and I have been pondering on this suggestion. Like many villages which grew up around a nineteenth century road system, Uphill was not designed for motor vehicles. It is difficult enough for residents to find a safe place to park if they have not got a drive to their property, or if they have visitors. The new road layout which is supposed to make traffic flow better and safer does the opposite; I have seen several near-misses on the corner of Ellesmere Road, opposite the post office, where the traffic coming past the school, along what appears to be a main road, doesn’t always realise that in fact traffic coming out of Ellesmere Road at a right angle has priority. There are other instances where the road layout and supposed traffic-calming measures are actually traffic-infuriating measures.
Parking, however is the major issue in the safety and convenience of villagers and their visitors. In Uphill there is a junior school for the village children; there is also another school serving children from across the authority; parking for that school and the other vehicles involved such as coaches, causes major difficulties for other road users. There is a hospice (which has a tiny parking area); it does magnificent and wonderful work for its patients and their families… however, there are always visitors, staff, consultants, ambulances, other vehicles, for which the roads are just not wide enough or suitable, especially when they are full of parked cars reducing them to a single lane. There are businesses in the village serving village people who have their own parking areas.
On the east side of the village is Weston General Hospital, and this has had a dreadful impact on the people living around it… because of the hundreds, yes, literally hundreds of cars parked because of people going to the hospital for some reason. Those people who are going to the hospital are often visiting someone who is ill, and maybe very seriously ill, and it must be frustrating and difficult for them trying to find places to park. Yellow lines have been painted along Grange Road; however they are intermittent and have created a chicane which is not only very dangerous but also makes it difficult and sometimes impossible for buses, ambulances and service vehicles to get through.
The point of most villagers’ annoyance however, isn’t just that they may not be able to park anywhere near their home, they may not be able to get to their home because the route has been blocked by inconsiderate parking, or even that they have to drive single file along certain roads, but it is the concern that one day an ambulance might be called, or a fire-engine, or a delivery might be made and the drivers just can’t get through. A one-way system would not cure any of this, and I don’t know what the solution is apart from having a park and ride system for the hospital, the hospice and the other school, however, a one-way system would improve the traffic flow, might (might) create better parking, and would definitely allow emergency and other vehicles access to all areas of the village.
Yours etc…
There… I feel better now!
Lois Elsden 
Too many cars, not enough space. Too much money, not enough common sense. Nuff said.
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