I would like some advice as to if there are recognised standards that apply to the height and shape of kerb stones. I recently drove along the beach car park and caravan park access road in the north Norfolk village of East Runton. Recent works at the junction where this joins the main coast road have resulted in unnecessarily wide pavements at the junction restricting the width of the road and forcing vehicles turning into the beach road to swing onto the wrong carriageway with barely space for two average sized vehicles to pass. This also causes serious congestion on the main road as frequently vehicles have to reverse to allow others out of the side road and join the main road. I was forced to pull close to the edge of the road to avoid a minor collision and my nearside front wheel contacted the kerb. Due to the shape of the new kerbstones the alloy wheel received quite serious damage. The kerbs, which have been recently laid, are merely square cut blocks of rough stone around 9 inches
High and do not have a gentle chamfered or rounded top edge, contrary to what I always thought was standard practice. I spoke with a local shopkeeper who stated the recent re-modelling of this junction is universally unpopular with both locals and visitors and there have been many cases of vehicle wheels being damaged in this way and it is feared the sharp edge will cause serious injury to anyone who was to stumble and fall onto it. All that was requested by the village residents was a pedestrian crossing; instead the local highways department produced what has turned out to be a very dangerous road layout for both pedestrians and motorists. Can the highways departments of local council's be allowed to produce road modelling schemes that are responsible for so many problems and not be held responsible? The damage sustained to my vehicle will probably require a new wheel to make good, do you feel it may be worth contacting the relevant department at the local council to try to obtain compensation, or at least an explanation of their strange planning?