Bypass through estate is insane

Fact: The lunatics have taken over.

Evidence: Three-lane roads are widely acknowledged to be lethal and have been scrapped, abandoned, lanes painted out or blocked in innumerable sites throughout the country.

A bypass through a housing estate is criminally insane [‘Green light for £30m bypass’, Gazette, September 9]. Side roads will feed into it and/or cut the area in half. Increasing volumes of traffic from developments at Hersden feeding onto the A26 will add to the problems.

30mph speed limits cannot be policed effectively without 24/7 CCTV and rigorous application.

Money on offer will be spent on a white elephant scheme simply to prevent its more effective use elsewhere. A dog in the manger attitude.

Roundabouts do not enable traffic to move more freely, vide Castle Street/wincheap, New Dover Road/bus station, Military Road, Sturry Road/northgate. Try traffic lights.

The projected building of circa 20,000 new houses in the area will produce about 35,000 more vehicles on the rough estimate of about 1.3 cars per household. Pollution? Electric charging? Infrastructure, vide Southern Water and electricity system that cannot cope now.

A bridge over the railway would solve level crossing problems.

Is it a legal requirement for all elected councillors and senior, decision-making public servants to undergo the removal of brain cells on appointment, or are they born that way?

Terry Burke

Canterbury

I write regarding your article about the Desmoulin whorl snail ['I would go to jail to save tiny snail', Gazette, September 16].

The snail will probably feel quite at home if the Sturry bypass and all the housing developments go ahead as all the traffic this will create will only be going at a snail’s pace anyway!

J Goldsmith

Canterbury