AN online petition has been launched calling for a footbridge to take one of the world’s most famous long distance walks over one of North Yorkshire’s busiest roads.
Campaigners say walkers often take their lives in their hands crossing the busy A19, between Ingleby Arncliffe and Ingleby Cross, near Northallerton, and fear someone will be badly injured or killed. Now they say it is time something was done.
The 192-mile Coast to Coast walk was devised by Alfred Wainwright in 1973, taking trekkers from the Irish Sea at St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay on the North Yorkshire coast.
It goes through three national parks – the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors – and is hugely popular with long-distance walkers.
But when it was devised the A19 was not the busy dual carriageway it is today, so for many walkers the section which takes pedestrians across the road near Ingleby Cross is safety hazard.
For Ashley Vaughan Watson, who runs the nearby Somerset House bed and breakfast, a footbridge is desperately needed and he’s now launched the online petition to rally support.
“At the moment it’s bad because the A19 has become the main route north and south because of roadworks on the A1,” he said.
“Trying to cross the road with a rucksack and maybe a dog, it’s an accident waiting to happen. Quite a few of our guests are coast to coast walkers and they’ve told us they have come close many times.
“It has been raised in the past but nothing happens, it will only be if somebody dies. We want to prove we have the backing of enough people before we go to the authorities. If we can get a few thousand signatures that would give us ammunition to back the case.
“We need a bridge. People are not going to be keen to walk along a big diversion. They have already walked 24 miles by the time they get here from Richmond and the Coast to Coast is a big economic boost for this area.”
He claimed that some 10,000 people from all over the world followed the route every year - and the online petition needs that number of signatures to get a Government response.
The petition can be found at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105379
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