Dead in the water

I READ with interest your recent report of Councillor Elfan Ap Rees' statement that a Banwell bypass is apparently 'still an option'. Can I please put you straight on a few points.

As far as the local community are concerned, the question of a bypass is dead in the water, and deservedly so. The residents of Banwell itself may want a bypass, but the residents of the surrounding villages certainly do not. It is their opposition that has always killed off the issue in the past, and will continue to do so every time it is raised in the future.

A Banwell bypass would simply shift the problem onto these surrounding villages, and make the matter worse in attracting greater volumes of traffic.

It is not therefore simply a matter of money, as Cllr Ap Rees suggests, but is rather a matter of the huge opposition from surrounding villages.

Despite this local opposition to a bypass, however, the comments from Councillor Ap Rees show the council's true desire one day to eventually see it built, and it is to this end that they have always protected a route in their long term planning.

The council's new plan to take it up to 2026, called its 'Core Strategy', is currently being formulated. It is about time the council faced up to the fact that a bypass is simply not wanted, and finally dropped the route from its plan.

EDWARD NORTHCOTT

Greenhill Road, Sandford