The school run

This is a picture of my two sons aged 4.5 and 2.5. My eldest son is now at school full time, and the wonderful school is located a mere 3 minute walk away . There is a downside, to get to this wonderful school you  have to walk down an alleyway although better know as dog poo alley in our household. The other option is to walk almost a mile out of your way down to the bottom of our road and back up the next, me being lazy i will always take the alleyway. With the recent snow the alleyway froze and didn't thaw for 9 days, that's almost 2 weeks of slipping and sliding until one day some people (an angel) had had enough and bit by bit broke up the 3 inch thick compacted sheet ice. Two local residents have recently been molested in broad daylight down this alleyway, thankfully the person was caught. There are cigarette butts accumilated in certain areas (under street lights) and im not talking about just a few. Some houses bathrooms back onto the alleyway and one loo overflow is well..constantly overflowing. Recently the alleyway coming off this one has been alley gated top and bottom which i am grateful for as it backs onto my garden and is one less security issue to worry about..however of course this only apply's if the alley gates are actually locked after use. Why am i talking about alleyways? Ive recently seen two things that have occured to me in the area as something to consider, apparently Medway council is reviewing weather alley ways are infact public rights of way or not , which means if it is not to be considered a public right of way, it whould mean being "pressed" for want of a better word onto the local residents to maintain it, I belive the whole intent of the purpose is in effect, a cost saving excerise as it would mean they no longer have to maintain it, the residents would, but would this also mean that if the residents adopt it do they get the option of alleygating this vital through road? The other thing ive noticed theres an ally at the end of my road that seems to have been unoffically adopted by a landlord of flats, don't get me wrong he's done a great job, put steps in, shingled it "framed" his sunken basement skylight with paving slabs etc, but what worrys me is what happens if some slabs where to come loose and someone got injured , who would be liable? im lead to believe the council because they haven't instructed the landlord to remove his work. The whole thing seem hypocritcal  to me, with one hand they want to get rid of the alleyways yet with the other they still want control of them, they just don't want to pay for them.