Victory in Eastwood over barmy bollards (From Echo)

Shopkeepers complained over bollards to Southend Council

10:00am Tuesday 21st February 2012 in Leigh By Ryan McCarthy

Success – Paul Mills at the spot where bollards were put up by the council last year

A PERSISTENT postmaster who complained when the council put up bollards outside his business is celebrating after they were taken down.

Paul Mills, 54, was furious in September last year when access to six parking spaces in front of the post office in Rayleigh Road, Eastwood, were lost because of the new bollards.

The four wooden bollards were put in by Southend Council in an effort to make the forecourt area safer, but traders complained it was driving customers away.

Mr Mills, who runs the sub-post office in the parade of shops, said he wasn’t consulted on the action and saw a drop in customers who could no longer pull up and pop into the shops.

He took on the council to get them taken down and is now happy to see the council has buckled under his pressure.

He said: “I have complained ever since they were put in because cars parking on the forecourt haven’t caused any accidents in the five years I have been here.

“It seemed like a complete waste of taxpayers’ money putting them in and it was hampering business.”

Mr Mills launched his campaign in the Echo alongside Samsu Miah, who owns the Hasina Tandoori Restaurant next door.

Mr Miah called the bollards a “disaster” and said in the 28 years he had been based in Rayleigh Road, he had never seen an accident.

Mr Mills added: “People have said well done for fighting it and I hope, now the spaces are free again, customers will start to come back.”

A council spokesman said: “The bollards have now been removed as a result of representations from the shopkeepers.”