Dear Sir,
I write to you with a matter of the greatest urgency. I hope that you may be able to give this matter your earnest and immediate attention before innocent lives are lost.
I have lived on K.H., Portland, Dorset for ten years. It is a vertiginous hill with an angle of 20 degrees and is quite daunting even in dry conditions. Directly at the bottom of this hill can be found a Junior School. There is also an Infants School and a nursery school nearby, together with a play-area and hard-surfaced soccer/basketball enclosure. The established 'school run' in the mornings is up the extremely steep S.M. road, along P.M. and down the equally steep K.H. to the school.
In all of the ten years that I have lived here the borough council have assiduously gritted these roads when the risk of ice/ snow was present. So far as I know, there has been no gritting this year. After yesterday's snowfall, nobody was able to use their cars due to the risk. The roads are now a sheet of ice. Even in a 4x4 I found it hard to stop at the bottom and my wheels were spinning on the ascent. It is incredibly dangerous and frightening. It can only be a matter of time before there is an accident.
I have spoken to Dorset County Council twice today, together with a call to my Borough Councillor, who fired off an e-mail. I have seen the gritter gritting the approach to Verne Prison earlier today . .but still nothing here.
Both my neighbour and I have been told that these roads have been taken off the gritting plan. Indeed, he was told that they will " never be gritted again " !
My concern is that a car will be unable to stop upon reaching the bottom and will either:
(a) plough through the low wall and end-up in the school hall
OR
(b) strike and kill a child or children approaching the school or heading towards the adjacent play area.
(c) hit and kill one of the many elderly dog-walkers who use this route to Chesil Cove
Clearly, in these circumstances, financial considerations must take second place to the preservation of human life. Given that the approach to the Verne Prison WAS gritted earlier today it would appear ( once again) that guilty criminals are valued more highly than innocent children!
By the time you may have had the opportunity to take some action on this matter it may already be too late, but I thought it only right & proper that you should be aware of the potential danger to children of your constituents.
I have already spoken to the Dorset Echo about this truly outrageous and unacceptable state of affairs and I will contact the local T.V. channels in due course.
When an innocent Portlander has been grievously . .perhaps even fatally . .injured by a runaway car it will be far too late to shed crocodile tears or bleat about 'budgets' and someone will have 'blood' on their hands.
I can assure you that I am not an hysterical 'whinger'. A few years ago I was one car behind a van which hit a child on Reforne, Portland, who had run out from between parked cars. Reforne has only a slight slope, conditions were perfect . . .and, still, the driver was unable to avoid a collision and the child to avoid broken bones.
I would very much appreciate your help in this matter. As I stated at the beginning :
This is a matter of EXTREME urgency
Sincerely yours,
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