SIR: I heartily endorse all statements regarding the article 'Stop 'em speeding' last month about the White Horse signals. I would also like to say that about 50 bungalows and flats have been built on or near the signals for disabled and old people, who were not mentioned.

Before all these houses and Molyneaux Road were built in this area there were two Co-op shops, a pie shop, a post office cum general stores and a chip shop. All these have been demolished etc and not replaced.

Now there is only the newsagent 'here to please you' stores. They do sterling work to help everyone out. Rose and her family have won an award from the BEN and really deserved it. They have offered to supply goods to the doors of old and disabled for nothing and have done so. She has installed a pie and pasty counter which is a great benefit to the community. But, and a big but, you dice with death when you have done your shopping and are trying to cross the road at the signals, because vehicles have only one thing in mind 'to beat the signals'. They have no pity at all. The starting grid at Brands Hatch is the nearest I can equate it to. To stop or avert an impending tragedy: Put signs up warning of old people crossing; have a 30 mph limit, half a mile before the signals; place cameras and advertise fully; stagger signals with longer pause between changes; better still have pedestrian crossings.

But for the business acumen of the family who own the paper shop, we would be like shipwrecked sailors on a desert island up here.

William A Hall

White Horse Grove, Westhoughton

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.