Lyme Regis looks set to get what is claimed to be its first controlled pedestrian crossing.

More than 600 people had signed a petition in favour of the Broad Street crossing but objectors convinced officers to recommend that the scheme should be turned down.

On Thursday the county council’s regulatory committee over-turned the recommendation and are now asking for the £85,000 crossing for approval at the next county council cabinet meeting.

The decision was greeted with tears of joy by partially-sighted Elizabeth Wiscombe who attended the meeting in Dorchester on Thursday with her guide dog, Healey, and has been campaigning for the crossing since 2015.

“I cannot tell you what a difference this will make to my life and to countless others. I’m so delighted,” she said.

Lyme councillor Cheryl Reynolds, who brought her to the meeting, and who spoke in favour of the crossing said she too was grateful to the committee listening to the arguments in favour of the crossing.

“Who has heard of a town without a proper pedestrian crossing?” said Cllr Reynolds.

Councillors were told that officers were persuaded to recommend refusing the scheme after a large number of formal letters of objection, primarily about the loss of parking spaces in the street to make way for the crossing, fears about adding to congestion, and an argument that traffic was so slow that, for most, it was relatively easy to cross the street.

In a letter to the committee from Miss Wiscombe, read by Cllr Reynolds, she said that took no account of people who, like her, were partially-sighted, or less able to dodge between cars. The controlled crossing, she said, offered an area of safety to cross.

Project engineer Andrew Bradley said the crossing could only realistically be installed in one position, half-way up the main street, between the Pug and Puffin shop and Joules on the other side, and would involve the loss of a minimum of four to five short-term parking spaces because the law required zig-zag no parking zones either side of a Puffin crossing.

Committee chairman Cllr David Jones said he often pushed his wife in a wheelchair and knew the benefits of having somewhere where it was guaranteed to be safe to cross: “I don’t like playing car roulette. It’s much safer to find a crossing.”

Support also came from Chickerell and Chesil Bank councillor Jean Dunseith who said the council had a duty to look after the less able: “It’s been pointed out that this is a town without a crossing and that’s a bad state of affairs. We are in a position to put that right for visitors and residents.”

A final decision will be made by the county council cabinet.

In a separate move officers are being asked to work with the town council to try and create more parking spaces in the street, possibly by moving the bus stop outside the Post Office to another location.

CATEGORIESSTORY

Edit "Lyme : Controversial crossing agreed"