Council need to reconsider Covehithe

PENELOPE Ansell (September 18) is being disingenuous in her letter concerning the proposed traffic arrangements at Covehithe. The current barrier across the road has not almost fallen into the sea and does not need moving some 300 hundred metres or so inland to prevent vehicles falling over the edge.

Similarly visitors, as they have done for years, are more than capable of judging for themselves whether to walk along an eroding cliff.

Covehithe has always attracted visitors and the residents can hardly have been unaware of that when they chose to live there. No one condones thoughtless parking, but closing off a well used public road demands a little more consultation than has been evident here.

In July, the county council put up, for a period of three weeks, the prescribed notices setting out their proposals. None of these notices was positioned where it would be obvious to walkers leaving their cars near the cliffs.

I must have cycled past them on a number of occasions before finally noticing them.

In the following weeks, finding that none of the visitors I spoke to had seen them either, I put up three notices of my own, setting out the effect, on the public, of the council's proposals.

Perhaps I was being a bit naive in putting them up, as they were quickly ripped down.

What followed then was, to me, the most disturbing aspect of the affair. I received an email from the council saying that they had one of my notices and that they would be pursuing the matter with the police.

True to their word, a very pleasant young policeman called at my home to warn me about my behaviour. In reality, I assume that my offence was to disagree with the council. Whether the circus, publicising their show in Southwold, received a similar visit, I doubt.

Even now it is not too late for the council to take a step back, hold discussions with all interested parties, not just with a few residents, and arrive at proposals which will satisfy everyone.

TONY ROBINSON

The Lane

Wrentham