SOUTHAMPTON council’s plan to close the Devonshire Road junction with Cumberland Place will shut off local residents from the road network and cut off access from the east.

It will be ineffective at reducing through-traffic, and will make main-road traffic worse by forcing residential journeys to smaller bottlenecks on the Northern Ring Road and Hill Lane.

Anyone who lives in or is familiar with the Polygon area can see that the council have not considered access for the 70% of residents who drive or the knock-on impacts on traffic flows in their plans.

Walking and cycling access from the Polygon to the town centre is already very good, and there are alternatives to reduce through-traffic like speed bumps or reopening Bedford Place.

They have given very little time in the middle of a stressful lockdown to engage residents on this major change.

Surely the council has higher priorities in sorting out schooling and looking after vulnerable people while the vaccine is rolled-out, instead of messing around with half-baked transport changes?

This top-down imposition is an irresponsible waste of taxpayers’ money when people are losing their jobs and will just make traffic worse.

The council should abandon these ill-considered plans.

Charles Perez-Storey

Bargate