Many residents of the Windmill Lane use Histon footpaths as a part of their daily activity. They may head north to shop at the excellent local butchers or to take advantage of the seniors’ lunches at the King William. Alternatively they go south to the centre of the village: to the library, the post office and the other local shops. It’s not always so easy.

The problems are multiple. Repeated patches to footpaths result in uneven surfaces and often it seems that the work is not always done right and repairs break up leaving a surface in need of repair again. And their are slopes to the footpaths which make their use by motorised scooters simply dangerous, especially when the width of the path is limited.

We welcome older people to live in our villages and we encourage them to be active. It’s the best way of postponing the need for expensive adult social care. But if we do this we must provide footpaths which are easy and safe to use. Cambridgeshire County Council has unfortunately under invested in looking after its footpaths and has admitted as much in a recent CEN article. Perhaps it’s time for a ‘safer route to the shops’ initiative.

County Councillor David Jenkins has highlighted this problem to the Council. He said: ‘the Council is simply allowing a problem to develop. If it’s not careful there will be a crisis. It does have money to address the pent-up need for repairs and it should spend it now.’