We in the UK National Federation of the Blind (NFB) have been campaigning for many years to make our pavements and "pedestrianised" areas safer places.

It is particularly pleasing the police are to act on the law. I also fully empathise with Jon Salvage (Opinion, February 15) regarding the blocking of the cycle lane along Coombe Terrace, Brighton, by selfish motorists.

It is time the police, Brighton and Hove City Council and interested groups - the cycling lobby, the Pedestrian Association and organisations such as the NFB - got together to protect the cyclist from the motorist and the pedestrian from both.

Most members in our organisation very much approve of cycling. It is a clean and environmentally friendly form of transport.

However, it is not so friendly when one is either blind or partially sighted to suddenly be confronted by a cyclist on the pavement. Then to be verbally abused, as is usually the case, adds insult to injury.

There have been many instances of serious injury, even death, caused by cyclists colliding with a pedestrian, which is why we feel that there is no place for cyclists on the pavement, even on designated lanes known as shared facilities.

The latter (which most cycling organisations are not in favour of) merely encourages cyclists to continue their journey on the pavement.

The council, in its eagerness to please the cycling lobby, has ignored our pleas not to place cycle lanes on the pavement.

Make the centre of Brighton and Hove a safer and friendlier place for us, the elderly, young children and people with mobility problems and then it will be "the place to be".

-Pete Collins, East Sussex Branch Secretary, National Federation of the Blind of the UK