I’M very grateful for the considerate people at Richmondshire and or North Yorkshire councils for putting up signs around Richmond apologising for the inconvenience and delays caused by the temporary traffic lights on the damaged Station Bridge.

However, there’s really no need to apologise as I have found delays have never been more than a couple of minutes, with tail-backs on either side of just a handful of vehicles.

This is in stark contrast to the constant and apparently permanent traffic congestion caused by the traffic lights at the bottom of Gallowgate in Richmond (for which no apology has been issued).

These traffic lights appear to be phased to favour inbound, rather that outbound, traffic.

The result is that, except at school-run times, vehicles entering town from Darlington or Gilling Road (the North) have preference and are usually only confronted with a tail-back of maybe half a dozen vehicles at the lights; while on the outbound side the tail-back extends right back into the town centre. This means Pottergate is blocked back to the Co-op (Queens Road) roundabout, and, from there, Queens Road and King Street right back into the Market Place; Victoria Road back to the cricket ground and Dundas Street back to Frenchgate. As a result the Queens Road roundabout is regularly clogged up with stationary traffic.

In other words, for substantial periods every day the centre of Richmond is effectively gridlocked by a problem which, I feel, could simply be solved by altering the timing of the lights to give more time on green to outbound traffic.

It’s the same principle that’s followed worldwide on toll motorways.

That’s why they always have the toll plazas on the inbound lanes entering a city, rather than outbound – so that any queues and congestion build up on the outside, rather than tailing back and clogging up the city centre: Basic urban traffic planning, which appears to be outside the knowledge of North Yorkshire County Council.

I made this point back in October last year to the council highways department and received a reply from a Peter Horne which gave various reasons for not doing anything.

Included in these excuses was fear that pedestrians, having to wait a few more seconds to cross the road at the lights, might take their lives in their hands and dodge between moving vehicles (which pedestrians either side of the Queens Road roundabout have to do anyway due to the lack of a pedestrian crossing except at the top of Dundas Street).

I asked Mr Horne to reconsider the matter. I am still waiting for a reply almost a year later.

I daresay that the Highways Department management at County Hall, with the well-reported major congestion problems in Northallerton, feel they have more pressing matters to deal with on their doorstep than those of a back-water like Richmond.

Or, perhaps I am alone in being constantly annoyed by this issue.

However if other readers share my frustration, then I hope they might succeed in getting a helpful response from Mr Horne at County Hall where I have failed.

Richard Wright, Skeeby