Footway Opening

Thank  you all for coming this morning – for this very special occasion – the opening of Phase 1 of our new footway.

I am pleased to welcome Cllr. Jean Newman, Cllr. Sylvia Butt and Cllr. Ricky Barnicott – whose help in achieving the funding for this project is greatly appreciated.

I am particularly pleased to welcome Jean Waters, Fred Smith and David Bage all previous Chairmen of our Parish Council all of whom were involved initially in pressing for this footway.

We have Alun Millard of SBC. Highways here -  perhaps I could mention SBC Highways Manager, Behadad Haratbar.

Mr. Haratbar is away at the moment and cannot be with us just now – he has been very patient with the P.C. I have lost count of the number of meetings and telephone calls we have had.

It is pleasing to note the choice of facing bricks for this project – I understand this is after Consultation with the Conservation Officer, Peter Bell. The bricks are from our local Brickworks at Funton, these fit very nicely with the guidelines of the Lynsted Design Statement.

I would also like to thank the landowners who were most affected by this project, namely Mr. David Kent and Mr. Leslie French for their co-operation.

Mr. French has been particularly helpful and has taken a close interest in our aims.

It is of course the Parish Council who have pressed for this footway over many years, without their total commitment this footway would not have been built.

So finally it gives me extreme pleasure to officially declare this footway open.

At last our residents and their children have a safe place to walk to school and to the shops.

The work of course is not done entirely, we start from today in pressing for Phase 2 of this project!

T.M.English.   7th.January 2005.