A BLIND pensioner says Mini Holland’s ‘Copenhagen crossings’ are putting her life at risk.

Susanna Hancock says the shared space schemes mean she can’t distinguish between the pavement and the road.

The crossings, which see the pavement blended into the road, are meant to signal to drivers they are entering a pedestrian area.

But the mother-of-two of Higham’s Park says without a kerb to mark where the pavement ends, she can easily walk into the path of oncoming traffic.

Ms Hancock said: “Before Mini Holland it was much easier for me. I could always tell where the road began.

East London and West Essex Guardian Series:

Clyde Loakes checks out a Copenhagen crossing.

“Now it scares me to think I could just walk into the road without even realising it and I can’t prepare for it.

“I want to walk in the middle of the pavement but I can’t because I won’t know when the road begins. I have to walk close to the shopfronts so I know when the wall ends there is a road.

“It’s not ideal. Some shops have boxes of fruit outside and metal signs and I trip over them. It annoys me and it’s embarrassing to fall over stuff.”

The retired equality and opportunities officer worked for various organisations and charities including MENCAP.

After going blind as a one-year-old baby doctors told her mother there was nothing they could do.

Ms Hancock, who has lived in the Walthamstow area for the past 30 years, wants Waltham Forest Council to reverse the controversial £27million cycling scheme.

East London and West Essex Guardian Series:

Guardian reporter Laura O'Callaghan meausuring a kerb near a cycle lane in Leytonstone.

She said: “In the last two years the council has done a lot of things that are making it difficult for disabled people to get around.

“I really hate this Mini Holland and it is so frustrating when the council don’t care how we feel. I wasn’t consulted about any of this.

“I know Sadiq Khan is in favour of it but he doesn’t know what it’s like to be a blind person walking down the street.

“I like to get a taxi from door to door if I have to go somewhere. Now with all the road closures the taxis can’t drop you at the door.

“I just want it to return to the normal pavements. I don’t think it’s a big ask.”

Earlier this month a blind woman won a landmark case in Northern Ireland after arguing that lowered kerbs endangered her life because she couldn’t distinguish the pavement from the road.

Her lawyers argued that academic research states kerbs should be at lease 60mm in height.

The Guardian measured the kerbs in Waltham Forest and found them to be 108mm.

Last month a report by the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee recommended that local authorities should be required to halt the use of shared space schemes “pending clear national guidance that explicitly addresses the needs of disabled people.”

Waltham Forest Council has been approached for a comment.