CHIPPING Sodbury’s new traffic management scheme has ignited passions in the town in recent weeks, fuelling debate in every shop, pub and café.

Onlookers have been compelled to add their thoughts to the argument in particular over whether or not the controversial crossing on Wickwar Road is safe for motorists and pedestrians.

Everyone has an opinion on the measures installed by South Gloucestershire Council but for one mother in the town, they have literally changed her life.

Reporter Alexandra Womack took a walk around the High Street with MS sufferer Liz Ranger.

“MY life is now safer with the crossing,” Liz Ranger says with mixed feelings. “Everyone else is not safe but for me, the official black and white lines mean I have time to cross because cars have to stop.

“Before it was there I relied on the goodwill of people to stop. It was complete pot luck.”

Liz, 37, has Multiple Sclerosis, a neurological condition which leaves her needing a walker or motorised scooter to get out and about. Diagnosed in 2009 Liz, a former financial advisor, purposely moved to Chipping Sodbury four years ago with husband Ian and the couple’s son Sabin, 7, for the community spirit which she is lifted by in times of a relapse.

“We thought about the rickety roads and the fact that to the eye the High Street is not disabled friendly,” she said. “But it was the community – where roads fail me the community spirit helps me and it has certainly got me this far.

“But I know quite a lot of people through my charity work and St John’s Mead Primary School which Sabin attends and it is a quite a thing for a young lady with a small child to be in a wheelchair. It makes me more visible but to elderly people, those who don’t know anyone or who wouldn’t stop someone they don’t know for help, that is who I am speaking up for.”

She said the changes, implemented by South Gloucestershire Council with public money handed over as part of the development of the town’s Waitrose supermarket, had given her freedom.

“I could never get a bus before,” said Liz, of Brook Street. “I had to rely on a friendly bus driver and someone, either a passenger or sometimes I would have asked a passer by or a shopkeeper, to help me on but there were certain services I just could not get on.

“Now with the new raised pavement at the bus stop on the High Street, outside Hobbs House, I can go out for the day with Sabin. It is brilliant.”

She said the other major improvement was the filling in of a pothole on Rounceval Street, by the Horseshoe pub, and a new raised table there.

“I cannot express how much filling in that pothole has changed my life,” she said. “Before I had to go all the way to Cotswold Vintners to cross the road but now I can cross there and that means I can go to football practice at Chipping Sodbury School with Sabin.

“And the sleeping policeman now indicates to drivers that they need to slow down. But I would like a crossing there and we need to think about that.”

Liz, who has previously written about her experiences as a disabled resident for the Sodbury Parish Plan, said there was still more to be done.

“What has been done is fantastic,” she said. “But the High Street is a car park and there are still few dropped curbs and with all the cars parked on the chippings, Sabin and I often get split up on the walk to school.

“It is about keeping our High Street going from its medieval origins and keeping it friendly so the purple pound can come here and spend.”