Letter:Funding the UK transport system

Sir: Hayley North (Letters, 26 July) is right to be incensed at any request to contribute to the National Cycle Network when ample funds already exist in the form of Lottery money and the 74 per cent of every car tax disc which is never spent on roads or transport infrastructure.

This means that over pounds 2 billion pounds of taxpayer's money is not being used for its proper purpose every year; this disgraceful abuse of public funds, which it is fair to describe as legalised misappropriation, has been going on since the Finance Act of 1937.

Had this not been the case we could have had the Cycle Network years ago. The idea is not new - cycleways were built alongside part of the A4 in the Thirties. Just think how many cyclists would still be alive had the network been started then.

The truth is that British governments have never spent enough on our transport systems; during the last three decades they grudgingly let a little of the Road Fund trickle out, enough to build our pitifully small motorway network and a very few of the bypasses desperately needed to bring peace and quiet to communities by diverting heavy traffic away from them, and now even that has all but dried up. We are told this is on environmental grounds, but anyone gullible enough to believe that probably believes in fairies.

R C O ROSE

Morfa Nefyn, Gwynedd