Your local councillors have presented their petition for a zebra crossing to the Full Council. The meeting took place on the week before the Bathwick Hill Tesco opened for the first time.

The council Highways Department took over a year to paint on the loading bay needed by the shop following the government planning inspector’s ruling. The council had argued that loading at the shop would be unsafe and the loading bay remains controversial. Following objections from local residents and your Lib Dem councillors, the loading bay has been reduced in length and the road re-marked.

Cllr Edwards is still concerned though: “The new layout might just about work on paper, but real cars, lorries and buses swing across the lines risking a real accident here.”

Cllr Coombes added: “The best we can hope for is that drivers will stop to pass each other when a lorry is parked outside Tesco. What we need now though is a zebra crossing to improve pedestrian safety. This should also slow traffic over the canal bridge.”

In presenting the petition to BathNES council, Armand Edwards drew attention to the traffic and pedestrian counts, justifying a zebra crossing over Bathwick Hill at the canal. The Conservative cabinet have again failed to fund the crossing ns the next financial year until April 2010. Having first raised this with the then cabinet member in January 2007, your councillors will keep up the fight for this much needed crossing. The petition is at www.ourcampaign.org.uk/bathwickcrossing.