Across the length and breadth of our country, in parks, village greens, and even in some areas of London town, you will find park benches. Small wooden structures that will allow two or three people to sit down and watch the world go by. I do not use them personally, what with their association with tramps and everything, but I can see why other people hold them so dear.

There are even those placed in remembrance of dead people, which is nice, as nothing honours the memory of a lost relative quite so much as providing an uncomfortable bed for a pissed tramp.

The location is key however. It may be overlooking a lake, or a particularly beautiful flowerbed, or simply placed in the perfect position to people watch whilst eating your lunch. I am sure that much thought goes into the decision on exactly where to put it, in the hope that the bench will provide optimum viewing pleasure for its users.

Which is why I am confused by the placement of a bench that I can see from my office window. It is a normal bench, wooden in construction, and treated to protect it from the elements. It is placed neatly on the grass. Unfortunately, that grass is in the middle of a traffic roundabout in a dual-carriageway stretch of the A4.

I do not know how many people have found themselves on that roundabout and thought, “I could really do with a sit-down now, if only there was some device which would allow me to do just that”. In order for the bench to be there, someone must have, surely?

In three weeks, I have not seen a single person use the bench. In fact, if the grass had not been cut I would say that no human had actually been on the roundabout at all in that time. There is no pedestrian access to it, so to get to the bench you must navigate a dual carriageway roundabout, which at any given time appears to have at least half a dozen cars on it.

Last summer a teenager was knocked down fifty yards past the roundabout just trying to cross the road, I doubt a standard park bench user (old person or tramp) is going to have better luck crossing the busy main road. It is like the person who put it there is issuing a challenge to the old and the drunk, “come and have a go if you think you’re agile enough”.

Despite all of this, I am now desperate to see someone sat there eating their lunch, taking in the view of my offices and inhaling the traffic fumes. Volunteers?

No tags