People power has led to a row of bollards being removed from a narrow village footpath – just a week after they were installed.

Two posts had been requested by Chart Sutton Parish Council around four years ago to protect the pavement from parked cars and lorries clipping the kerb.

But the parish council got more than it bargained for, when eight of the unsightly white obstructions were installed all the way along the Chart Hill Road footpath up to the village hall.

They were placed during the second week of July, but just seven days later they had been removed after public pressure.

Sammie Lawson, 52, of Mercer Lane, said: “I came back from the gym and saw them going up. I thought they must be temporary. They weren’t even symmetrical and were so far into the pavement you would struggle to get a pushchair or a wheelchair through.

“They looked awful.

“We were told they were to stop cars parking on the pavement but we have lived here a year and never seen that happen.

“They weren’t even doing what they were supposed to do because they weren’t installed where they were needed.

“Instead, they caused a health and safety problem. The road is not well lit and someone could walk into one late at night. If you walk along with young children you’d have to walk either side of the posts.”

At a parish council meeting the following week there was standing room only as villagers packed into the hall to protest about the bollards.

Parish council chairman Peter Forknall said the posts had not gone where contractors laid the markers, to stop drivers clipping their wing mirrors on them.

A petition signed by nearly 40 people was also started at the community shop.

It has now been suggested that a couple of floral planters should be put on the corner of Marsham Crescent.

Mrs Lawson, a veterinary nurse, added: “I’m very, very pleased the council acted so quickly.”