LETTER: What is best for local people?

In a recent letter printed in the Observer there are calls from Councillor Pieter Montyn for a public inquiry to reinstate the northern and southern bypass options in the A27 improvement consultation.

To attempt now to delay the process further by demanding public inquiries serves only to jeopardise any chance of actually getting on with the job at hand and solving the traffic problems for residents and businesses alike. And why? The reasoning behind the new bypass options (both north and south) being dropped has been clearly explained this week as a) being outside the project budget and b) being outside the scope of the committed funding.

That aside - An interesting statistic came to light this week. In a meeting late last year, in which WSCC were present, Highways England presented the findings of their traffic modelling which concluded that whilst a northern bypass would improve long distance journeys by around nine minutes it would actually serve to increase delays in local journeys by five minutes. It is therefore clear that the agenda of a northern bypass was only beneficial to through traffic, and the only solution to improve the traffic congestion for local people and businesses was to improve the existing road.

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If councillor Montyn really wants to represent the interests of the ‘ordinary tens of thousands of folk’ that use the A27 daily, then he should seriously reconsider his agenda and get behind supporting the upgrading of the existing junctions.

Ben Kirk

Hunters Race

West Lavant