Good fences make good neighbours, according to the American poet, Robert Frost. And it’s easy to see his point. Few of us would welcome open access to our backyard or garden.

But when it comes to cities and urban planning the opposite is true: good fences make for bad neighbours in all sorts of ways. Instead of walls hemming people in, a happy town needs as many bridges as possible, both physical and metaphorical. And that is why I, for one, am so delighted to read about the plan to build a brand new bridge alongside the Victorian railway crossing over the Ouse at Scarborough Bridge.

If you want to see the plans, Google ‘City Connect Scarborough Bridge’. You’ll be taken to a detailed webpage where the images recreating how the bridge will look when completed make a fine sight.

One inspiring aspect of the project is its vision of encouraging people to take to their bikes. Certainly, cyclists will be able to cross that side of the city more easily, thereby improving air quality and helping to cut carbon emissions: a boon for leisure, commuting and the future health of the planet.

Back to Frost’s point about fences. Is it just me who wonders how Britain became such a divided society over the last few decades? There seem so many barriers thrown up between people these days, many rooted in ignorance and distrust. Some are physical, of course, like the growth of gated communities beginning to make its way here from America. Too many fences seem to have grown tall in our minds. And tall fences cast dark shadows.

A point in case is the false ‘fence’ erected between young and old. The interests of elderly people are often presented as somehow antithetical to those of young people. As though it is impossible for all generations to share the same levels of prosperity some senior citizens enjoy. The inference is that early retirement, high pensions, home ownership and decent rights at work are fenced off from the majority of young people and that it is somehow acceptable. Not to mention the thorny question of university tuition fees leaving graduates in horrendous debt.

Other examples in modern Britain are uncomfortably easy to find: rich versus poor, homeless versus housed, able bodied people capable of work set against disabled people who are forced to endure cruel PIP and work capability assessments, immigrants versus ‘native’ Brits, well fed people versus those forced to access food banks, Brexiters versus Remainers etc etc. It makes a depressing list.

Of course, politicians often use division for their own ends and always have done. It keeps us from examining the real problems in society by finding someone else to blame. And then our mental fences go up a notch higher.

Back in 1987 Margaret Thatcher famously declared: “There’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families . . . and people must look after themselves first.” She went on to say that having looked after ourselves, our neighbours are the next priority.

However, I would argue Thatcher got it wrong. Indeed, that her kind of thinking has led to the divisions and inequalities in modern Britain so many of us lament. By remorselessly looking after our neighbours we actually promote our own self interests. That is why the NHS is still such a wonderful institution, despite being part-privatised and starved of funds over the last few years. Paying for healthcare through our National Insurance Contributions works so much better for all of us than paying private insurance can ever do.

Scarborough Bridge is another case in point. This excellent initiative will make our city a more cohesive and attractive place, as anyone who has seen the beneficial effect of the Millennium Bridge a couple of miles downstream must surely agree.

So I say, let’s invest in bridges rather than build high fences between people, not least in our minds. With Brexit coming at us fast, we need to question Frost’s line that ‘Good fences make good neighbours’ and actively work to keep goodwill flowing between nations, communities and individuals.