Poor paths

IT is with regret at the age of 88 years old I feel I must complain to the county council about the paths in Allendale.

The very sad thing is our school children were happily going on their scooters and bicycles until the only path from Catton and Denelands was completely blocked by two feet of compact, wet leaves.

That meant scooters and pushchairs were out of the question, and the children were back to being taken to school by car.

Now the other children could not use their bicycles for all the parked cars.

I tried to phone the council as I had to walk on the road to go to my granddaughter’s house, but was told to fill in a form online. My granddaughter did this and still nothing has happened over two weeks later.

With one fell swoop of pure neglect, the council has stopped the initiative of children walking to school.

Over the years I and many other pensioners have taken our chance on the roads, because the pavements in Allendale are so full of potholes. I am concerned that my great-grandchildren are in danger of doing that as well.

Are the council so hard up that they cannot even pay someone to clear the leaves?

My council rates are £235 a month which leaves me £300 pension to live on, which appears very bad value when I have to walk on the road.

I worked for 53 years and was told a while ago that we had to pay more tax because there was a hole in the council pension fund. No one paid for a hole in my pension fund.

It was a bit of a slap in the face when they would not even take a phone call.

LILY BRENNAN

Allendale