Lincolnshire County Council promises to fix dangerous Springfield Road footpath in Grantham after anger from residents and appeal from LincsOnline

Angry residents have forced a council to take a second look at a failing footpath, leading to a promise of future repairs.

Disabled and elderly residents of Brick Kiln Place, off Springfield Road, in Grantham, approached LincsOnline with concerns about the deterioration of a section of the path from Caunt Road to the nearby Co-op store, with some “terrified” to make simple shopping trips.

Lincolnshire County Council’s highways department originally told residents that the footpath did not yet meet the criteria for intervention. However, after being shown evidence by LincsOnline, it has now taken another look.

Around 80% of the residents in the 48 flats in the independent living building use mobility aids, but the footpath across the road is in a state of disrepair and is overgrown by nearby trees in places.

The footpath causes mobility aids to wobble, making them unstable, with residents reporting falls and pain from shockwaves as they travel along the path.

The trees push the residents right to the edge of the footpath, risking them falling into the road, and many have dropped shopping.

The near side of the road is smoother and can be travelled to the dropped kerbs at Hanbury Avenue, but this comes with its own issues.

Without a crossing, residents risk accidents crossing in front of fast-moving traffic on blind bends.

Residents say the issues stop them living independently, as some are too worried about going out. It also hinders residents from accessing local services, such as the Co-op itself, takeaways, and nearby post facilities.

Jenny Molyneaux, a resident for two-and-a-half years, uses a motorised wheelchair. Bumps in the path send shockwaves through her body, causing spasms.

"Frankly, I’m terrified because I’m aware that the path is really bad," she said.

"I feel like I’ll be tipped into the road. It frightens me.

"I don’t go out as often as I used to now because I just can’t cope with it."

Peter Pretlove also uses a mobility scooter and joked that the pavement would beat the Beatles’ "4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire" line from A Day in the Life.

"They’re terrible. You have to go slowly along there. I went too fast and lost a leg on my mobility aid; it caught and nearly took my leg off as well.

"If you want to go to town, you’ve got to either risk it on the road or try to find a new, longer way round."

Elsie Clark uses a walking aid to move about.

"I fear I could fall quite easily. As you get to the end, the tarmac has gone, and you have to pick your walker up and lift it over," she said.

Shirley Thomas has fallen from the path and suffered a broken wrist as a result of the pavement changing height around the nearby trees.

"When it’s wet and we get a frost, it’s lethal," she said.

"We’re supposed to be in an independent living facility. It’s not fair on some of the residents; they can’t go out and do a bit of shopping on their own."

In a letter to Grantham MP Gareth Davies (Con), seen by reporters, county council officers originally said: "There are no concerns at all regarding its condition.

"We have no plans to change nor add to any of the provisions nor move their locations at this point in time," they added.

However, after being contacted by LincsOnline reporters, the situation was looked at again.

Coun Richard Davies (Con), executive member for highways at the county council, said: "It’s an accurate report made so far about the path in that it hasn’t yet reached intervention levels of degradation – but we’ve been looking at the situation to see what we could do, if anything, further about this."

He said several teams had now come together to look at diaries and come up with a plan, but said there were a few issues to overcome before proper action could be taken.

"Firstly, we will get a crew out to get rid of the bushes that are encroaching across the footpaths. We’ll get this done as soon as we possibly can.

"Where we need to, we’ll be going to any landowners responsible for the vegetation’s upkeep to recoup these costs incurred.

"We will also look at tidying up the path surface as far as possible. It sounds counter-productive to say this, but because there’s only light surface degradation, we won’t be able to do very much other than smooth it out where we can."

He acknowledged this would only be a temporary measure and "only last for a while," but said that when the path did give up and the council had enough for a full rebuild, "we will look at other measures we can bring in."

"We’ll do our very best to get this in place soon. But we do have a serious fly in the ointment with this work plan at the moment, and that’s the other roadworks currently happening in Grantham," he said, pointing to works on Dysart Road and Station Approach, which were already impacting Springfield Road, causing increased traffic, delays, and congestion.

He said a need for traffic management, like temporary lights, meant the council must wait for current roadworks to finish before starting at Brick Kiln Place."

“We simply can’t add more traffic disruption to Grantham at the moment,” he said.

"I hope everyone understands that we will try our best to make this better for the residents here.”