STEPS allowing Salway Ash School children to cross a road in safety have been ruled a health and safety hazard.

The ultimatum comes after Dorset County Council put on a bus service to take children a few hundred metres to school after the road was ruled too dangerous to walk because there is no pavement.

Parent Charlie Howard, from Vale View, restored steps up a bank to a path that his children used to get from home to school where there is no pavement and put in a handrail to make them safer.

But now landowners Magna, with Dorset County Council’s highways department, has ordered him to remove them by tomorrow or they will do it for him and send him the bill.

His four children now get the half a mile bus ride to school.

But instead of crossing where it is safe and using the steps they have to walk back up the road, cross Pineapple Lane entrance/junction and then cross the road on the blind bend.

Mr Howard claimed the situation was ‘crazy’.

He said someone had complained about the steps to Magna who arranged a site meeting last week with county highways.

He said: “They said it was a health and safety issue and who was liable if someone hurt themselves? I said I would take out a £5 million liability insurance policy on it if necessary.”

He said: “The argument for Magna is that because I put something there, albeit safer, I am encouraging people to use it.

“I will have to take the steps away and people are still going to scramble up the bank and potentially get hurt. It is just crazy.”

“My wife is worried about next week and ultimately we will have to stop using the bus and drive the children to school.

“Or crazy as it sounds my wife would drive around to where they get dropped off because it is the safest method of crossing the road.”

Neighbour Lyndsay Hawkins, 37, who has two children at the school, used the steps when she went to the school.

She said: “We always came that way. I am not entirely sure why there suddenly seems to be a problem with it.

“The bus is of no use if we then have to cross on a blind corner, it makes no sense to me.

“It is not safer to get the bus.”

Bob Roberts, housing officer for Magna Housing Association, said: “We sympathise with the situation the residents are in and we understand their frustrations which have resulted in them installing their own steps.

“However, the steps are on Magna’s land and if anyone were to be injured we may be liable. We cannot take this risk and this is why we have asked the residents to remove the steps before the end of the week. In addition, Dorset County Council has insisted that the bottom step be removed immediately. This would render the rest of the steps unsafe.

“We have told the residents that we will look into alternative solutions, which may include us putting in a set of steps and a path to them. We are working with our contractor to assess costs and feasibility for this.”