Stamford residents have reacted with horror after traditional paving setts in the heart of the town were permanently replaced with patches of Tarmac.
A section of Stamford’s historic High Street has been somewhat rudely brought in to the modern era after being resurfaced by contractors.
It is part of a £50,000 repair scheme by Lincolnshire County County which began in November.
But many of Stamford’s 20,000 residents reacted with outrage on Friday after a section of paving setts outside the town’s Marks & Spencer were replaced with Tarmac.
Other resurfacing work was also taking place on a nearby pedestrian crossing.
Lincolnshire County Council claim the work follows numerous cases of people tripping over uneven paving in the areas, as well as in the nearby historic Red Lion Square, and say the paving setts will be used elsewhere in the town.
But angry locals have described replacing the Williamson Cliff brick setts – formerly made in Stamford – as “madness,” like “painting an antique” and a “first step downhill.”
The historic Lincolnshire market town doubled as Meryton in the 2005 film of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice starring Kiera Knightley.
It was also a backdrop for blockbuster The Da Vinci Code and the 2011 film Middlemarch.
But this historic beauty has been ruined by the Tarmac resurfacing, warn some locals.
Stamford resident Malcolm Scholes described the work as like “painting an antique” and a “first step downhill.”
Sales director Fiona Broadbent said: “Stamford gets voted in The Times one of the nicest places to live, but then it gets the High Street tarmacked.”
Another Stamford resident, Kay Bloodworth, asked: “It needed something doing, but Tarmac, wasn’t there an alternative, like relaying the stones properly?”
A similar outcry was made by Stamford residents in March last year when town councillors agreed to consider replacing the Yorkstone in Red Lion Square with Tarmac.
Stamford Civic Society warned stone setts were more appropriate for the surroundings and Lincolnshire County Council claimed no firm plans were yet in place.
But Coun David Brailsford (Con), county councillor for Stamford West, defended the recent Tarmac work.
Coun Brailsford said: “As part of the ongoing pavement works in Stamford town centre, the highways team found two small areas that would need to be tarmacked.
“As well as the stones lifting and becoming unsafe for pedestrians, tests carried out on the ground beneath these areas have shown that the base isn’t suitable.
“The cost of the base works and then resetting the stones, plus the ongoing maintenance and repair of them – and the risk to pedestrians where they lift – means they’re not a viable option for the two areas.
“The pedestrian crossing at Broad Street and Ironmonger Street, and the parking area opposite Marks and Spencer will need to be tarmacked.
“Vehicles moving about in both these areas has compounded the issues and caused further damage to the stones.
“In both areas they’re salvaging the stones for use elsewhere in the town centre.”
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
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