Last updated 15:53, Wednesday, 30 April 2008

HOOLIGANS’ antics have tormented an elderly woman so much that she has pleaded with council chiefs to move a bus stop from outside her home.

Dora Postlethwaite, 84, of Main Street, Distington, has asked Cumbria County Council chief executive Peter Stybelski to shift the stop after suffering five years of misery from passengers sheltering on her doorstep, dropping litter and even urinating on her wall.

On Tuesday the county area committee voted to spend £1,000 on the legally required consultation before moving the bus stop, possibly to a new location near currenly vacant land between 103 and 95 Main Street.

Speaking on behalf of her grandmother, Debra Bell, of Whitehaven, said: “The rubbish is unbelievable since they moved the bus stop to outside her house. The main thing is the cigarette butts that she has to clean up.

“They eat and drink stuff then just drop it on the ground when the bus comes.

“If it’s raining they open her gates and sit on the steps or stand in the porch – she feels intimidated in her own home.

“She’s getting older and she’s not at all well. It’s just getting too much for her.”

Mrs Bell added that her grandmother and a neighbour had both witnessed passengers urinating up the side of her house while waiting for the bus on two separate occasions – one involved a man and the other a young boy who was with his mother.

She said: “She’s been in that bungalow for 21 years and it’s only since the bus stop got moved that she’s hated living there – up until then she loved it.

“She had no notification that the council was moving the bus stop in 2003 – she came to my house for the day and when my husband took her home in the evening it was there.

“They built up the high kerb for passengers to get on and off the bus and she fell off the kerb because she wasn’t expecting it.”

Mrs Bell added several members of the senior citizens’ club that her grandmother attends in Distington had also written to Mr Stybelski about the problem of anti-social behaviour at the bus stop and had all received replies saying he would look into it.

A report to go before councillors states Mr Stybelski is in favour of a plan to move the bus stop further up the street to a point where it is not directly outside anyone’s home.

Copeland area engineer John Dell has, however, recommended the stop should stay put.

In his report he estimates the physical cost of removing and relocating the high kerbs and bus stop road markings at £3,700, with another £1,000 needed for a public consultation and a further £3,000 to £5,000 to alter the traffic regulation order.