A DEVOTED wife claims she has to take her life in her hands every time she uses a footway to visit her sick husband in a Kidderminster nursing home.

Dorothy Gibbons has visited her husband, William, 73, in the Herons Nursing Home in Heronswood Road, Spennells between three and five times a week for 17 months.

She makes two bus journeys across town from her home, so she can spend the morning with him.

When Mrs Gibbons, 72, gets off the bus in Heronswood Road, however, the stretch of grass walkway she has to use to reach the home is so dangerous she prefers to walk in the road.

Mrs Gibbons went on: "The walkway between the bus stop and the nursing home is grass verge - it is uneven, muddy and slippery and there are overhanging trees you have to avoid. I am not very steady on my feet so I have to walk in the road.

"It is a busy road on a bad bend and my life is at stake.

"I am sure some drivers must think 'silly old woman' for walking in the road but I have no choice."

Mrs Gibbons added she could not cross the road to use the pavement on the other side because of the bend preventing motorists from seeing her.

For more than six months she has been calling for the council to put ash down to soak up the mud or, preferably, tarmac the verge.

Mrs Gibbons said: "I have written to the MP, Dr Richard Taylor, and contacted local councillor, Helen Dyke."

The Wyre Forest Highways Partnership Unit wrote to Dr Taylor in August, saying "budget constraints at County Hall" meant no funding had been made available for the work, although it had been agreed it needed to be done.

Councillor Dyke said she would try again in the new financial year in April to get funding, adding: "I have always said it is dangerous because of the bend and nursing home residents, visitors, schoolchildren and people going into town all walk along there.

"I know there is a pavement on the other side of the road but there are 2,000 houses on Spennells - aren't we entitled to a pavement on both sides?"