COUNCILLOR Perkins (Your Letters, March 26) alleges that I have not "understood" the council's so-called cycling strategy, and he seeks to support this policy with a piffling evasion of the real issues. Coun Perkins does not help his cause by appending his name to a letter written in that pretentious verbiage beloved of town hall bureaucrats.

He clearly hasn't a clue regarding the regular violations of the law by irresponsible cyclists. He, unbelievably, refers to "enforcement". What enforcement? There has been no enforcement of the law regarding the behaviour of cyclists in this town for years. They get away with murder!

Is Coun Perkins arguing that, once the "cycling policy" is fully implemented, we can look forward to the end of cycling anarchy which so disfigures this town? If so, how? Is the council intending to bring pressure to bear on the police, who for years have ignored their responsibility in this respect? If so, why wait any longer? Why not use the influence the council possesses to do so now? After all violations are happening now. I never travel by foot without risking being knocked down by a cyclist on the pavement or in an underpass. It is true that there is a statutory instrument waiting to pass through the Commons which will provide the police with the power to fine, on the spot, people violating the cycling laws. Perhaps the council and the police should get together so as to create a "cycling policy" which both respects the law, and ensures the safety of the innocent pedestrian.

If Coun Perkins wants to know just what the public feels about bikes on pavements, I suggest he goes and stands at the traffic lights on Peel Way opposite Tesco, and notes how the vast majority of pedestrians totally ignore the cycling lane and use it as a pavement. He will find the same thing at the Bury Bridge-Irwell Street underpass.

Since Victorian times - and indeed before in some areas - pavements have been the exclusive preserve of pedestrians. People know this and resent attempts by the authorities to create a system which ignores this. They want a policy which both respects the law and guarantees their safety.

Or do we have to wait for someone to be injured, or worse, before the council and the police come to their senses?

RAY HONEYFORD,

Wragby Close, Bury.

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