A CROSSING on a busy town centre road has been taken up by highways authorities following a complaint by a member of the public.

The crossing, marked out in red brick tiles, was over Edith Walk, and linked Church Walk with the Waitrose site, providing a link between the supermarket's car park and the town centre. It was removed and replaced with black tarmac towards the end of last week.

A spokesman for Worcestershire County Council said: "The previous red surfacing on Edith Walk implies a priority to pedestrians, which there was not at this crossing. as it is not an official pedestrian crossing.

"A member of the public raised this concern and following an investigation by Worcestershire Highways, it was found in the interest in public safety the bricked section should be removed and replaced with standard tarmac.

"The removal of the coloured surfacing now shows that pedestrians do not have right-of-way over approaching traffic."

The move has generated a lot of comments on the Malvern Gazette website and Facebook page,

Paula Carlisle said: "I was always told it wasn't an official crossing. It's people's good nature that let pedestrians cross safely. I let people cross if I go that way. It's only right even though I don't have to."

Holly Genner said: "It wasn't a crossing anyway! Obviously people with manners will stop and let people cross but it seems very unnecessary to spend money on this when it makes no difference to the crossing."

Cheryl Clarke-Phillips said: "Never has been an official crossing. There’s just a lot of polite folks in Malvern that stop for people to cross anyway."

Hayley Murphy said: "Agree with other people, it was never a crossing anyway. Get annoyed with people stepping out and giving evil stares to the motorists coming down the hill. I will still stop to let people go as it’s common courtesy but hopefully pedestrians will get the message it’s not their right of way and pay attention!"

Sharon Jones said: "I'm not sure why people are saying it should be a crossing. It's not a particularly busy road, wide road or fast moving road. In reality it's probably one of the easier places to cross in the town."

Daphne Northey Hughes said: "We were crossing there yesterday, were half way across when some idiot in a white car came skidding out of the small car park at a rate of knots and had no intention of watching for pedestrians, we just got off to the other side in time. If we'd been frail senior citizens we'd have been mown down. Thankfully most people are polite enough to stop to let folk cross."

Grenville Sheringham said: "There should be a crossing here and another one on the road into Waitrose car park. People should have priority over cars in this busy shopping area."

Liz Barber said: "This surely gives the message that Malvern discourages pedestrian shoppers, and encourages cars to speed down hill."