Alan Laws

Good morning, Clare.

Well, basically, I raised it again, not for the first time at February's MD meeting.

And we're getting the same answer.

I've done this over a few years.

There was a proper application made for the estate to be handed over back in 2021.

And the problem, as outlined from there, was the builders that built this estate went bankrupt.

and basically the estate was never completed properly.

So you had paths throughout the estate that were cracked nearly from the time they were put down, and then potholes have appeared and got worse over the years as well.

So myself and other councillors have raised this issue over many years, and we keep on getting the same answer.

And when you look at the picture there of Ben Fadden, I mean, he was badly shaken up, and he was badly bruised around the face

And the lady that broke her wrist, for example, that lady, I know personally, she's a personal friend of mine, and that lady had a brain injury to start with.

And we're so, so lucky that she actually only fell on her wrist and not on her head.

And then we have the most recent one, the picture in The Independent of an older lady as well that was calling to another resident and took a trip.

What we're trying to do is, you know, we're talking about health and safety here.

We're talking about people getting injured.

And they're just some of the ones, like Ben said, there's probably many other people that's fallen that we don't know about, Clare.

And the answer I got from Meade County Council is...

I asked them for a timeframe.

I asked them, like, can we say, just say it started in August, it's going to be started in November.

And they were unable at this stage in 2026 to give me a timeframe for processing their request, which was a legitimately made five years ago.