MP's petition to remove seven-year-old scaffolding

The scaffolding was put up in Aylesbury in 2018 after a building collapsed

An MP has started a petition calling on a local council to remove scaffolding that has blocked a pavement for seven years.

Laura Kyrke-Smith, the Labour MP for Aylesbury, said poles put up against a building that collapsed on the town's High Street in 2018 forced pedestrians into a busy road and was an "eyesore".

She said she had "lost count of the number of residents that have been in touch about it".

Buckinghamshire Council said the structure was needed because the building was unsafe and highways users had to be protected, but it was pushing for a solution.

MP Laura Kyrke-Smith said she had "lost count" of the number of constituents that had contacted her about the scaffolding

Kyrke-Smith, who was elected as an MP last July, said she felt she had to pick up on the issue "after a year in this job and hearing from so many people about it".

However, she recognised "the difficulty with developing the site because the company that owned it went into liquidation".

She said there had been a couple of failed attempts to auction the site but the building had fallen into Crown ownership, which can happen when land no longer has an owner.

She admitted that made it "very difficult for the council to go ahead and do anything with it", but urged the authority to get a structural engineer to see "how it could be improved or redesigned to make it safer for people to get through".

Pictured by the scaffolding last year, Lynda Bell said it was a "pain, not just for me, but for people pushing prams or holding on to children"

One of those affected by it is Lynda Bell who has arthritis, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, and uses a mobility scooter.

She said the scaffolding was highly dangerous as she had to travel on the adjacent A41 for about 20m (66ft), as there was no dropped kerb on the other side.

Sometimes there were also delivery trucks dropping off food to the restaurants that she had to go around.

She said it was "a pain, not just for me, but for people pushing prams or holding on to children but having to walk into the road".

Liberal Democrat councillors Sherrilyn Bateman and Tim Dixon baked a cake to mark the scaffolding's seventh anniversary

In April, Aylesbury Liberal Democrat councillors Sherrilyn Bateman and Tim Dixon marked the seventh anniversary of the scaffolding by baking a cake.

Bateman said it was "a complete eyesore" and "fly-tipping happens all the time there".

A spokesperson for the council, run by a minority Conservative administration, said it was "pushing for a redesign of the scaffolding... so it would include a walkway section", with work being progressed "as quickly as we can".