WITH reference to your article entitled 'Town choking in extra traffic' in last week's edition, may I please comment on Wiltshire County Council and the Highways Agency handling of this matter?

I have before me a letter addressed to Bradford Town Council inviting them to a briefing session hosted by the county council and the highways agency, at which invited councillors only were permitted.

No such invitation was extended to the councils of North Bradley or Westbury Town, yet these are the most badly affected of all the places along the route, having to cope with both A363 and A350 extra traffic.

As your article points out, the leaflet issued by the council does not even show Bradford on Avon as part of the diversion! Yet all traffic is directed through both Yarnbrook and Westbury, an increase of over 19,000 vehicles a day, as you so rightly point out.

This high-handed treatment is typical of the way the county council and the highways agency have handled this matter; the people most affected and who have to suffer the greatest have not been consulted or informed in any way.

Yet Westbury has the worst air pollution problem (along the Warminster Road section of the A350) in the whole of west Wiltshire, and is subject to an air quality management plan because of it.

When will the county council and highways agency consult and listen to the people who are really affected by their decisions?

HORACE PRICKETT,

Westbury Town Councillor,

Hawkeridge Road,

Yarnbrook,

Trowbridge.