NEW dropped kerb crossings in Dorchester are a hazard to the disabled people they are supposed to help, claims former mayor David Barrett.

He is concerned that extra work to put them right is taking up public money.

Coun Barrett, a dropped kerb advisor for Dorset Association for the Disabled, is raising the issue with Dorset County Council, which has an annual budget of £50,000 to spend across the county on dropped kerbs.

He said the dropped kerbs’ new locations in Weymouth Avenue, Queens Avenue and Edward Road have worse visibility and do not have the tactile surfaces needed for blind and partially-sighted people.

In a letter to David Jenkins, chief executive of the county council, he claims: ‘We consider the relocation of these kerbs to be dangerous in the extreme and one which we moreover believe will considerably further endanger the lives of our members, both the disabled in wheelchairs and the blind if they now utilise these crossings.

‘We cannot understand why the previous crossing points were displaced.’ He says that problems with parked cars, reduced street lighting, a camber that impedes the wheels of buggies and wheelchairs all make crossing the road unsafe for disabled people.

He adds that the DDA fears all dropped kerbs throughout Dorset might need to be revisited, remodelled and relocated at a cost of millions of pounds.

And he wants assurance that the £50,000 budget for Dorset would not be put at risk by the need for possible rectifications.

He says: “Disabled people must not be further disadvantaged by the loss of this money.”

Coun Barrett asks to be able to attend county meetings when the crossings are being discussed. His actions follow a move by the county council to ask towns and boroughs in Dorset to co-ordinate a programme of dropped kerb crossings – Dorchester Town Council invited the Dorchester Area Access for All Group to have an input.

Coun Fiona Kent-Ledger, chairman of the town council planning and environment committee, replied to a question by Coun Barrett for an explanation about the issue and said the arrangement was working well.

She said: “The remedial works carried out to a number of crossings recently, including the resiting of some, results from a realisation by the county council that they had not been installed in accordance with national requirements and does not arise because of any failings on the part of the access group.

“I understand it was the access group who first drew the attention of the county council to the problem.”