Residents and councillors alike were in shock last week to discover the bus pull in at the hospital had disappeared, to be replaced with a huge amount of pavement.

We are all for improving pedestrian safety and distancing but not at the expensive of road safety.

No councillor was told about this before it happened and we’ve already had apologies from the council for this, however it does not fix the immediate problem.

Motorists are now overtaking stationary buses on the wrong side of the road. This really is an accident waiting to happen and someone at County Hall needs to listen.

As the roads get busier the queues because of this change are going to get longer too.

The irony of all this is that this was done to increase space for people waiting for the bus – but there are fewer people using the buses than at any time in history.

Perhaps the council could concentrate on edging back all the overgrown footpaths across the County instead, which really would help with pedestrian safety. There hasn’t been a budget for this in the entire history of this Unitary Council despite our repeated requests for it.

If there is a footpath near you which has become really overgrown, please report it to help@durham.gov.uk or let us know. We have reported quite a lot ourselves but the more pressure the better.