How could access be denied?

I read in my parish magazine Chatabout that the police are now about to prosecute motorists who ignore the "access only" signs in Kimberley Lane, St Martins.

How can this be?

Does it mean that residents have agreed to adopt the road, and become responsible for its future maintenance? Turning it, in effect, into a private drive to which the public can rightly be denied access? I don't think so.

So can somebody explain to me why a motorist who pays the same road fund tax and other dues as a resident of Kimberley Lane, but does not actually live there, should be threatened with prosecution for going there?

I regularly use Kimberley Lane as a direct route from my home to St Martins Post Office where I post letters to the Shropshire Star, having still failed to work out how to send an e-mail.

I object most strongly to being told I am to be barred from this road because the residents don't like it.

Who do they think they are?

At the risk of being pedantic let me point out that the sign says "access only". That's all. It does not say "access denied unless just visiting".

To come to the point, I do require access in Kimberley Lane. Specifically, my car needs access to the tarmac in order to travel from the Overton to the Ellesmere roads.

So I am not disobeying the sign when I travel down the lane.

Sam Evans, Oswestry