Chaotic

RE Letters complaining about parents using St Mary's Lane to gain access to Gordano School's pedestrian entrance in Greenfield Park.People who live near a school should expect to encounter school traffic. Similarly, if the drivers are respectful of the rules of the road, the residents should have no cause to complain, but take away the volume of traffic from one area and it will just occur in another.Closing St Mary's Lane has recently been tried. One sixth former wrote to the newspaper and described how remote and lonely the lane had become without any traffic and the children left vulnerable walking along it.I use (upper) St Mary's Road and drop off my children on Wetlands Lane so they can gain access to the Greenfield Park pedestrian entrance to Gordano School, thus avoiding the already very busy lower vehicular entrance to the High School.I drop off two children and then drive to Portbury Docks using Bristol Road, Portbury Common and Portbury Hundred, thus bypassing the chaotic High Street, already overloaded coping with the extra St Joseph's traffic. I travel the same route in the school holidays.The council has monitored the traffic affected by the closure of St Mary's Road upper section at least twice, down Avon Way and on St Mary's Road lower section.Reviewing those figures would be interesting, giving us an insight into how much extra traffic the High Street or Slade Road would have to cope with during the school run.I wonder how the Slade Road residents would like this diverted traffic turning right into Slade Road coming down Avon Way, to avoid most of the High Street. However Slade Road and St Peter's Road are quite narrow in places and two-way traffic cannot run concurrently. Ensuing queues would be likely.Parents, please do not park in front of people's driveways, and Wetlands Lane residents, please understand Portishead cannot cope with any more traffic along the High Street.We need this route to get to work and school.Melanie Miller - Avon Way, Portishead