Held to ransom

Currently the main roads from the north and south of the town are closed about 400 times a week. This amounts to an eye watering 20,000 closures a year. If we assume the average closure to be a conservative five minutes it's equivalent to the town being blocked off for a total of ten weeks every year (19 per cent) with four queues of cars sitting with engines running for all that time .

Given the developments on the former York Trailers site, the proposed new developments for the north of Northallerton and the developments taking place in Bedale and Leeming, more than two thousand houses all of which will have at least one car, this can only become worse.

With the opening of the new bridge more traffic from the west will take the Dolly Lane/Yafforth Road (with its dangerous junction in Yafforth), new bridge, Stokesley Road route into town so increasing pressure there with its split-site secondary school straddling the road.

It also seems likely that the rail link with Teesside will be electrified and one would hope that the North-East economic recovery will be sustained. Both will result in a substantial increase in rail traffic, particularly freight, exacerbating problems even further.

I cannot think of another town of such size and importance being held to ransom by a railway. The free movement of traffic, the reduction of the terrible pollution caused by queues of cars at the level crossings and the severe disturbance caused by trains thundering past people's homes can be solved easily by the diversion of the Teesside railway north of Brompton so that it joins the main east coast line to the north of the town. This will remove the level crossings opening up the town and the closed section from Brompton into Northallerton would be a wonderful green route for cyclists and walkers from the new developments.

This should be the priority for our elected representatives. Northallerton deserves nothing less.

T BRODRICK,

Hird Avenue, Bedale.