Letter: Newbury needs public transport

From Ms Kate Grennell

Sir: John Watts writes (Another View, 20 February) "Opposition comes mainly from people who do not live near Newbury". He also states 20,000 vehicles, including 400 heavy lorries an hour, are likely to travel on the by-pass. They may avoid Newbury but I suspect most of them will have travelled south on the A34, within half a mile of our house. How would he like all that traffic in his back yard?

The money already spent on policing the construction would easily have subsidised public transport from here to Newbury. Twenty years ago, the hourly bus from Oxford to Newbury stopped in our village. Now we can only get to Newbury by bus once a week and must return by mid-afternoon.

When will the Government realise we must stop building roads, which ruin our countryside, and invest in effective public transport for the whole country, not just isolated towns like Newbury?

Yours faithfully,

Kate Grennell

Didcot, Oxfordshire