A brighter future for ‘dark, scary path’
We are delighted and relieved to say that at last there is extra lighting along Highland Terrace from Dorset Street to the steps at Brougham Hayes.
Highland Terrace is the pathway that runs alongside Oldfield Park Station, which is a much-used Public Right of Way between Brook Road and Brougham Hayes.
This section was very dark and scary to walk down for everyone to the point that people felt forced to shine torches when using it. A lot though told us they would not go down it when it was dark. This applied to both men and women.
Also, the overgrown vegetation that reduced the width of the path quite considerably in places and offered potential offenders a place to hide, has also finally been cut back.
I first approached the council about lighting along here well over 12 years ago as in those days, even with my quite large collie-cross dog Max, I felt unsafe to go along there. However, I was informed that there were other more important locations that had to be dealt with so nothing happened. Finally when the Ward boundary changes of 2019 came in and this area was included in mine and Colin’s Ward of Westmoreland we decided we could do something about it ourselves and get some funding to be able to improve the safety for everyone around here. We successfully achieved this thanks to funding from the Community Infrastructure Levy and three week’s ago the lights were turned on.
We are not aware of other unlit sections in our Ward but if any resident has concerns then we ask that they contact us and we will most definitely look in to it. With the recent tragedy of Sarah Everard we feel that it is important that the council takes stock of any unlit areas and do what they can to improve them accordingly.