Chronic situation

The A417 is a busy main road with a considerable proportion of the traffic being heavy goods vehicles. There are two issues that need to be addressed by the local authority.

Firstly, Herefordshire Council should be reducing speed limits and putting in traffic calming measures in order to protect the quality of life in the villages situated on the main roads. I can only think of one such village in the county where a serious attempt has been made to exert control over speeding traffic. Compare Herefordshire's inactivity with neighbouring counties such as Gloucestershire, Shropshire and Worcestershire, where the response to Government guidelines has been far more enthusiastic.

The second issue centres around the village school. Ashperton School is large by village standards, with about 150 pupils, but it is situated next to a blind bend on the main road.

The road is at its narrowest within 50 metres of the school and the pavement there is less than half a metre wide. Walking in single file is not a safe option for young children when heavy lorries are thundering past their shoulders and I can think of no other school where walking on the only pavement poses such a risk. Certainly such a situation would not have been allowed to exist for so long in Hereford or the market towns so why is it considered acceptable in Ashperton.

The Safer Routes to School Initiative is being used to improve pedestrian access to Ledbury Primary School (Ledbury Reporter, October 4) yet there are no plans to do the same in Ashperton.

If pedestrian access could be improved it might help to avoid the chronic situation at the start and close of school when parents are parking on both sides of the main road. Perhaps they could then be encouraged to park at either the church or the village hall and walk the short distance to school.

Herefordshire Council should be striving to improve the quality of life in their villages or is that expecting too much?

ALAN MAUDE, Ashperton.