These walkways go from Ridge Road, through Burnham Drive, Forest Drive, Eastmoor and down to the Beach. The walkways are owned by the council and are usually very overgrown and full of litter, providing an ideal hideaway for those committing crimes in the area.
Apparently, the council cannot afford to look after these areas, even though we pay incredibly high rates and the area has been subjected to a good deal of crime.
In recent years, some of these walkways have been walled/fenced on one side, with a gate to allow access through to the beach. In some instances, the gate is padlocked at 7pm and opened at 6am, although they are often not opened as promised.
Recently,one of these walls appeared on a walkway near my home. I was never spoken to about the proposed wall, it just appeared. When I asked the people that were erecting it, why it was being erected, they said they worked for a fencing company and didn’t know who had instructed for the wall to be erected.
I subsequently spoke to our local councillor who said he would check it out and see what he could find out regarding the purpose of the walls and get back to me, but that was three weeks ago, and I have still not heard from him.
My main question is this, what is the point of these walls?
Each walkway only has a wall on one side, thus there is access to the entire area at all times, even if the walled area is padlocked.
The wall on my nearby walkway does not have a padlock and even if it did, one can easily climb the gate.
Could some someone explain the purpose of these walls, and
if they are to improve security, surely there needs to be a wall at either end of the walkway and the gates would need to be impossible to climb and padlocked?
I have asked many people what they think the purpose of the wall is, and nobody knows. It seems we must all be missing the point! If anything, the wall/fence on the walkway actually obscures the view from the road into the walkway so you cannot see what is going on in there, thus creating a security hazard rather than solving one?
Missing The Point
La Lucia
