ANOTHER summer has passed and with it the inevitable yet needless traffic congestion which continues to haunt the beautiful village of Lyndhurst.

It is appalling that this dreadful and ever worsening situation continues to be tolerated and yet previous attempts over the years to have a bypass built around the village, have been thwarted mainly by local landowners, the Verderers and our previous MP.

The welcome prospect of electric vehicles in the future will help enormously with the pollution side of things, but unfortunately, the queues are likely to grow ever longer due to larger vehicles on the road and ever growing car ownership and continuing cut backs to public transport.

The current situation is totally unacceptable and it is not fair on the local residents, especially children and those with respiratory problems. Commercial businesses are affected with vans and lorries needlessly waiting in queues. Also, ambulances and other emergency services are affected with fateful consequences in some instances no doubt, when the patient cannot get to hospital quickly enough when indeed every second counts. All are suffering as a result, not to mention motorists passing through who have to endure this madness every year and must dread driving through Lyndhurst.

A bypass or a tunnel would of course be the obvious solution. This will not be an easy task to achieve as past attempts have shown, but I do feel it will soon become vital and urgent. Surely now is the perfect time and opportunity to start preparing for the inevitable and to plan for a well thought out solution to the problem rather than a bodge job done in a hurry when the inevitable gridlock ensues? Of course, there may be other options available, such as using the existing roads in a more intelligent way.

I urge your readers to give it some consideration and to come up with their thoughts and ideas on this pressing issue. District Councillor Hilary Brand is working hard at making the roads around Lyndhurst safer and is looking at ways to solve the traffic congestion problem once and for all. She would welcome any ideas and her email address is Hilary.Brand@newforest.gov.uk

John Bryan

Lyndhurst