I recently drove along the infamous shared space on Southend seafront.

A car coming the other way had stopped and I could see a blind person with her dog waiting at the roadside.

I stopped too. We waited.

And we waited.

The dog was doing the right thing. It could see two cars and did not know we would not continue driving.

Another motorist in the forming queue got impatient and roared around the stopped car, gesticulating at the rest of us.

Eventually, a pedestrian passer-by saw what was happening, took the blind lady’s arm and walked her across the road with her dog, while we continued to wait.

Therefore, to read about new warning signs going up on the seafront (Nov 17) leaves me still convinced of the thoughtlessness of the councillors who sanctioned this daft idea.

Adding highly visible signs everywhere will not add to the visual pleasure of the seafront. It will just look like a training ground for motorists doing the theory driving test.

More importantly, blind people will not be able to read the signs. So drivers who stop, as we did, to enable someone visually impaired, will have to get out of our cars and help them.

In the latest guidance from the Department for Transport, the blind and partially-sighted people are singled out as being liable to suffer from poorly-designed shared space schemes.

Kevin Leigh
The Broadway
Thorpe Bay