Mike's sight started to deteriorate six months ago when he was diagnosed with Leber's Disease.

The hereditary condition leads to failure of the optic nerve and Mike's sight went from normal to a blur in a few weeks.

Until its onset Mike of Noah's Ark Lane, Lindfield, had been the owner of Chad Ballooning and had claimed numerous hot air ballooning records.
Now he can only see hazy shapes in front of him and recognises friends by the sound of their voices.

He said road bollards and wheelie bins on the pavement were "a real pain" while many busy roads and junctions needed pedestrian lights to enable the visually impaired to cross safely.

But Mike said when the audible beeping noise made by lights at some busy junctions and main roads switched to silent at midnight, walking home became doubly difficult.

He said: "If I go down to Brighton for a meal with friends in the evening and come back on the train, I walk back to Lindfield and cross several main roads.

"Sometimes a driver has stopped and called out to me that it is safe to cross, or once or twice someone has got out of their car and helped me cross.

"I can't see why they turn the sound off. If people live near to a main road then they have got to expect noise."

Mike said he first complained to County Hall when the beeping sound switched off at 10pm at several junctions and it had since been reinstated until midnight, but he said it should remain on all night.

He also highlighted several difficult crossing points for visually impaired people and the elderly including Lindfield High Street, which has no light-controlled crossing point, the Commercial Square-Mill Green Road junction in Haywards Heath and the roads west of Sainsbury's in Haywards Heath including Bannister Way.

Mike said: "It's a nightmare for me to cross in Lindfield High Street and the traffic does whizz down there, so for other people and the elderly who can't see well it must be difficult as well."

A spokesman for West Sussex County County said they were investigating the use of a tactile safety system at light-controlled crossings where the audible sound systems were switched off late at night.

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