Sir, The bus lane proposal for the A40 has the air of a quick, cheap, kick-the-can-down-the road solution.

The congestion problem is so bad and has been left unresolved for so long that any proper solution is going to be very expensive. That said, the Treasury has gained so much from the tax paid on fuel burnt while standing in traffic queues that local drivers should consider themselves entitled to a properly functioning road network.

Three aspects of the scheme worry me. The first is that Eynsham is likely not to be sufficiently far west, so that people from Carterton and Witney will have to drive there. More seriously, I wonder at the breadth of the traffic surveys: congestion is so bad that it displaces traffic to alternative roads which have become rat-runs. One is via Long Hanborough and Bladon, the other obvious one is via Ducklington and Northmoor.

If the congestion is initially reduced on the A40, we might end up back to square one as traffic abandons the rat runs and returns to the A40, so the relief to the villagers along those roads might be short lived. Let us not forget that life for these people must be hell at peak times.

Do we know how much of the traffic heading towards Oxford actually goes there, or wants to get past Oxford, perhaps to the M40 eastward, or south via the A34? It is more than simply a commuting problem.

Finally, Witney and its immediate environs are the location of several sheltered and nursing homes. Being of a certain age myself, I wonder how quickly ambulances will be able to get through if this gate scheme is installed?

It is bad enough that humps slow them down and cost 500 lives a year in the London area alone, according to the London Ambulance Service. That could cause the money saved on the road scheme to be spent again on an air ambulance service, bringing us back to square one yet again.

Ralph Ingham-Johnson
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Witney