WITH the Millennium pressing ever closer you would feel that St Helens would be a safe community for its population and visitors as anywhere else in the North West.

However, this is not entirely true as major roads feeding the town are still extremely dangerous to road users. Cars, lorries and any other means of transport are all at risk, but the main concern that we all should recognise is that of vulnerable pedestrians.

There is one particular road that I feel is extremely unfit for pedestrian usage and is continually neglected by the borough council.

The road that I am referring to is the East Lancashire Road that links this town with Liverpool, Manchester and other small towns.

There are a number of accidents on this road throughout the year some of them are minor while others are more serious and sometimes fatal.

From the end of the Liverpool section of the East Lancashire Road through to Leigh there are no suitable means of safe crossing for pedestrians, therefore endangering lives of pedestrians as well as those of the motorists.

Throughout Liverpool on this road there is, at every junction, a means of crossing for pedestrians that give a small amount of protection to those wishing to venture from one side of the road to the other, this is also the case in Leigh.

However, St Helens council still don't feel that wasting vast amounts of money on re-homing a statue of a monarch that passed away nearly 100 years ago, is justified.

Not meaning to be disrespectful to Queen Victoria, but I don't feel it necessary to relocate her statue.

The majority of the St Helens community don't really see this as a great investment for the town's Millennium campaign and again the majority don't realise that if the relocation of the statue actually takes place it would mean the memorial has been moved twice since its unveiling in April 1905.

Originally the statue faced towards the YMCA Buildings and 94 years later St Helens Council will relocate the statue again. Why? I'm sure that if Queen Victoria were alive today she would prefer this town to spend its funds on making its people safe rather than relocating a statue that imposes no danger to the general public.

Chris Harrison, Exeter Street, Newtown

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