I was amazed when I read your front page article (Gazette, April 15) about the plan to divert traffic through Marina Meadows, Devizes.

This was not just because of the inconvenience and chaos it is going to cause. Nor was it because it is unacceptable that Wessex Water was not required to anticipate the need before London Road was so recently resurfaced.

What surprised me most was the county council's alleged belief that only 2,000 vehicles use London Road each day. That is a ludicrously low figure and must surely have been transcribed wrongly. It was stated recently that it cannot afford a traffic survey, so where does it get these figures?

Actual traffic is far greater than 2,000 vehicles. The Save Our Spitalcroft community group carried out a detailed survey on February 4, 2000. About 40 volunteers counted the traffic on roads surrounding the Spitalcroft in 15-minute intervals. Between 7.30am and 9am, 1,468 vehicles moved along London Road towards Devizes and 1,591 moved out of town, towards Marlborough.

Between 3.30pm and 6pm, 1,974 vehicles entered Devizes from the east and 1,813 left town towards the east. That amounts to 6,846 vehicle movements just in the four busiest hours of a typical day in 2000.

Since then the traffic has considerably increased. I know that because the county and district

council have told the public. The Highways Department obviously has the resources for selected traffic surveys because, on the second page of their recent pamphlet on the Quiet Lanes project for Pewsey Vale, it states "Surveys show that traffic levels in the surrounding area have increased by eight per cent in the last five years".

Later this year the Save Our Spitalcroft Community Group expects to organise another traffic count and I hope you will allow us to announce the date, when it has been decided. The figures we collect will be of interest to other groups being affected by our excessive traffic.

Alan Padwick

Save Our Spitalcroft

London Road

Devizes