• I MUST add my voice to the request you printed from John Stratton, who asked for “pedestrian special” pages, since it seems to me that currently pedestrians have no rights at all, (Extra Letters, September 1).

Some time ago Westminster City Council finally created dropped kerbs all over Soho, for which many people were extremely grateful. People in wheelchairs, disabled people using walking aids, mothers with babies in buggies, all benefited.

But from the moment these dropped kerbs arrived, the one on the south side of the entrance to Poland Street car park became a dumping ground for such huge quantities of rubbish that even perfectly fit and unencumbered pedestrians were forced into the roadway. For disabled people it was an utter nightmare. And it is still going on.

I have sent countless photographs of the problem to the man in charge of refuse collection, whom I can’t praise enough. He gets people from his team out to deal with it constantly and as soon as possible. But it’s a ghastly problem.

And then, of course, there are the cyclists who believe that cycling on and using not just the roadway but the pavements is their right.

Recently I struggled across Great Marlborough Street (always difficult as parked cars obstruct the view of oncoming traffic) and reached the west side, on my way home with my reinforced walking aid / shopping trolley, only to find a tall cyclist on the pavement, his cycle right across the dropped kerb, barring my way.

He wasn’t talking into a phone, he was just gazing into the distance, but he ignored my repeated requests to “Please move” until, desperate, I shouted “Move” at him, and got the response “Go round me”. That would have taken me into the path of the traffic. Always in pain, I could have burst into tears.

When you add to this the constant clutter of dockless bikes dumped everywhere, we might as well not have pavements at all.

Nor is the problem confined to the Soho side of Oxford Street. I was standing on a pavement in Harley Street, not long ago, waiting to be helped into a clinic which I attend for the medical treatment unavailable now on the overstretched remnants of our NHS, when a cyclist headed straight down the pavement at me, and it was only with the help of a passer-by that I was snatched out of the way in time.

The cyclist was headed in the same direction as the scant traffic in the roadway, which he could easily have used. But how much more fun to ride on the pavement and see how many pedestrians he could mow down, which seems to be the only explanation.

So, while I have total respect for Mike van Erp (‘I don’t hate bad drivers – I hate the bad behaviours’, Cycling special, August 18), I wish to Heaven we wretched pedestrians had someone like him to speak up for us.

ALIDA BAXTER
Address supplied, W1