Trip to the Shops – progress

Encouraging news from the Hampshire Chronicle about the County Council’s response to pressure from our Trip to the Shops campaign and local residents about the state of Winchester’s pavements:

Why a trip to the shops may be a thing of the past

Pledge to spend £2m on pavement repairs

HIGH street pavements in Winchester are in line to be replaced at a cost of £2m, city chiefs announced this week.

The move will delight the many residents and visitors who have endured and complained about the city’s own version of crazy paving’ which, in some cases, has led to people tripping on the uneven surfaces.

We’ve been campaigning hard on this since last year (see reports here). It’s good to see progress, although I know from local residents that there’s a lot of work needed outside the city centre – and I know from personal experience that we will continue to have problems until there is tougher supervision of contractors by the County Council and better control of overweight lorries and trucks being allowed to drive over high street flag stones.

We’re going to keep up the pressure until all the problem areas have been tackled.

You can still report problems on our ‘trip to the shops’ campaign website.

My biggest memory of the first day collecting signatures in the High Street back last December was getting signatures from a troupe of local morris dancers!