A HEWETT resident is calling for a stretch of footpath to be made safer for pedestrians, after he recently witnessed a serious fall from its edge.

Max Kinsmore said he was driving over the Murray Road ford, near Clonlea Park, when he saw a boy on a bike fall from the concrete path and into the empty river more than a metre below.

“I helped him up and said let’s go make a complaint and he said no he didn’t want to because he wasn’t wearing a helmet,” Mr Kinsmore said.

“But he scraped himself real bad.”

Mr Kinsmore, who regularly drives across the ford from his home in Hewett to Gawler, said he has long been calling for safety improvements to be made to the area.

“You’ve got two cars going side by side across that ford at any one time and you go down there on a wet day, it is slippery as,” he said.

“There is no guard rail for (pedestrians) not to go in the river, and there’s no guard rail between cars and them.

“Are we not going to do a damn thing until someone actually falls over and dies, or hurts themselves?”

Mr Kinsmore said he also doesn’t understand why the ford at the opposite end of Murray Street, near Deadman’s Pass, does feature guard rails, when this one does not.

“They haven’t even got a sign ‘pedestrians beware’,” he said.

“People cross over that ford with their prams, trolleys, with their gophers, wheel chairs, arms full of shopping bags…and it’s hard for two people to walk across at the same time, and that’s not even when the water is flowing.

“If your grandparents were walking along here or your kids going to school, you’d feel pretty horrible.”

In a statement Gawler Mayor Karen Redman said design works for an upgrade to the Murray Road ford are currently planned in the 2020/21 financial year, but at the at the present time, council considers the footpath on the ford adequate for the safe movement of pedestrians.

“It is common at low level ford crossings of water courses for hand rails to not be present due to their frequent flooding and resultant damage to infrastructure which would occur,” she said.

“The ford has been functioning for many years in this way providing an important connection for the local community to access the Town Centre Precinct.

“Council advises that road users should be aware of environmental and road conditions at any given time including during times of flood events or other hazards.”

Ms Redman said planned design works for the crossing will inform indicative construction costs, with any works then prioritised accordingly in council’s Long Term Infrastructure and Asset Management Plan.

“…To assist pedestrians and cyclists in the short term, council will install signage and additional line marking on the footpath to increase delineation of the footpath edge and advise of risks,” she said.