Only the woman can make important choice

Sandford Park and Cox’s Meadow, it offered a well-used walking route all the way from the centre of town to the top of the Cotswolds.

That is until August 2015 when Gloucestershire Council Council closed the footbridge on safety grounds, cutting the path in two.

They were, they said, “working with Cheltenham Borough Council to effect repairs as soon as is possible as both authorities are keenly aware of the inconvenience caused by the continued closure”.

An inconvenience that affects everyone: children, the elderly, people with disabilities, dog walkers, evening strollers and serious hikers.

That was more than five years ago. The bridge is still closed. The two councils have achieved precisely nothing. Each year, they roll forward the legal closure and then - I assume - close the file for another 12 months.

Had this bridge carried a road, it would have been reopened within weeks. Everyone says we need to walk more and use our cars less, yet our two councils have failed to agree on how to give people back their legal right to use this path. Shame on them both! ✒ VERONICA Lowe (Letters, October 15) writes about the need to respect life - but she seems not to respect that other people have a right to choose what happens to their own bodies.

If she were pregnant and did not want to be, then it would and should be her decision what to do; not mine, not yours. She and others should not seek to impose their views on others.

As a man I would not be faced with this decision which I am sure is never taken lightly. It is for the woman to decide about her own body.

Her insensitive likening of the issue to that of “black lives..in 1800” is truer than she thinks in that many women are not free, have their rights over-ridden by those who think they know the “natural order of things” and are left powerless to determine their own lives.

There are women - and families, now around the world who suffer as a result of not being able to access abortion, even when the pregnancy has resulted from rape and partner violence, or has led to a severe medical problem.

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