A COUNCILLOR has called for cycling to be banned on Southend seafront after a cyclist broke a pedestrian’s hip.

Bernadette Lay-Flurrie, 56, is recovering in hospital after a cyclist rode into her on the pavement, under the pier bridge in Western Esplanade.

Councillor Paul Van Looy, who runs a cafe opposite and helped Mrs Lay-Flurrie after the collision, has called for cycling to be banned.

The independent councillor for St Luke’s Ward said: “You get hundreds of people coming from the pier, when a train arrives. There should be no cycling in the summer. When the cycle path stops, there should be a sign saying ‘no cycling’.”

Mrs Lay-Flurrie, her parents and husband were visiting Southend from Dunstable, on Sunday, andhad just stepped out, after riding the pier train.

As they walked underneath the bridge, linking the pier with Pier Hill, a female cyclist rode on the pavement between the crowds and hit Mrs Lay Flurrie, knocking her to the ground.

Her mother, Nancy O’Sullivan, 77, said: “If a child had been there, she would have killed him.”

A paramedic arrived in a few minutes, but warned the ambulance could take at least 30 minutes, as it was non-life-threatening.

After she had been lying on the pavement for about half an hour, the family decided to drive Mrs LayFlurrie to Luton and Dunstable Hospital, where it was discovered she had a broken hip. She had surgery on Monday evening.

Cyclists riding from the east are meant to mingle with pedestrians and cars along Marine Parade, in the “shared space”. This stops at a pedestrian crossing outside Adventure Island, before the pier, but no sign tells cyclists to dismount.

A cycle lane, going west along the seafront all the way to Chalkwell, starts from outside the Three Shells cafe and the cyclist may not have known to dismount.

An ambulance service spokesman said: “Our clinician strongly advised the patient’s family not to convey the patient to hospital themselves.”