HAVING returned from a week's holiday in Devon, I was looking forward to using the new Hagley Road crossing instead of the dreaded Foster Street subway. I have to say I was not very impressed.

The new Hagley Road crossing has no beeping noise and the green indication to cross is on for such a short time I had not even finished crossing the road by the time the green light went off!

More importantly, can I bring to the attention of whoever designed the system, how are the visually impaired supposed to use the crossing? They are reliant on hearing the beeping noise to cross the road. I am sure that this is in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act.

Some of the more recent pedestrian crossings also have the green man illuminated at low level, ie where you push the button to cross the road, which is much more child friendly as the green man can be seen at child height.

Not only that, once the green light to cross has gone off, the cars are still waiting there for a good ten seconds as the traffic lights on the ring road are still on red! This is causing an unnecessary backlog of traffic on the ring road, whilst the pedestrians are waiting to stop the traffic again!

The second point I would like to raise is the state of the town's public toilets. I have always found the toilets nothing less than disgusting. The ones just outside The Ryemarket are awful and are more often than not out of toilet roll. The ones at the top of the High Street, by the new Hagley Road crossing, are not much better either.

With a new baby on the way I am not looking forward to changing nappies in Stourbridge and will more than likely be travelling to Merry Hill where the facilities are far superior.

With the Tesco debate raging, I previously had mixed views. The proposed Tesco store will be virtually on my doorstep, which I did find a bit disconcerting. My view has now changed and I am now starting to think that Stourbridge has very little going for it. If Tesco are successful with their application, they will bring with them nice clean toilet facilities and hopefully attract some new and modern shops to Stourbridge. Then we might all be able to shop locally instead of going to Merry Hill - where we don't have to choose between children using unsafe pedestrian crossings or whether to use a dirty smelly (supposedly improved!) subway, and struggling to find a clean, hygienic place to change a baby's nappy.

Sarah Cornick Stourbridge