Another cause of hold-ups

Sir,

Returning from holiday to the Midlands on the A38 some weeks ago, I was not surprised to perceive a traffic jam at Taunton; what did later surprise me was that this stretched through Bridgwater Wellington and past Burnham-on-Sea, a solid seething mass of sunburn.

Having travelled 25 miles in just over four hours, with mutterings of “last holiday I’m spending in England”, and “bet this is the same until we reach the motorway”, suddenly lo and behold the cause of our delay! No, not a multi-car pile-up, nor the long-awaited sign “motorway construction works ahead”, but a traffic census. A bloody traffic census! Having passed this, the traffic was clear, and we had a trouble-free run home (apart from the customary hold-up on the motorway).

The point I am making is that if the Ministry of Transport (or whoever is responsible) has got nothing better to do with its time and money than this sort of thing (on one of the busiest Saturdays of the summer season), then it’s about time it packed up. I don’t really believe the Minister was all that interested in where everyone had been—after all, on the A38 it’s pretty obvious. It’s also pretty obvious that a new road is needed to Devon and Cornwall, and quick—and we don’t need a traffic census to tell us that. If the Minister had travelled those 25 miles with me I think he would have come to the same conclusion: when, I ask myself, is this bureaucratic absurdity going to stop and something material be shown for our £25+per year ?

“JUSTICE” – [Name and address supplied.—Ed.