Back in November last year the Echo featured an article about a proposed new bridge wide enough to carry a dual carriageway, to replace the Northam Railway Bridge in 2025. This new bridge will provide increased vehicle capacity and will inevitably lead to more cars being driven into the city centre. Is this really a good idea? Is this really how we look after the environment and make our city a better place in which to live?

Dual carriageways were driven through many UK cities in the 1970s and 80s, destroying historic settings and tearing communities apart. The legacy remains: environmental destruction, vast areas of concrete and cities in which the car is king and all else subjected to it. Surely we have moved on from this and now have better solutions to the problems of pollution and congestion than simply increasing the size of roads.

If this new bridge goes ahead, the cost to the public, estimated at around £70 million, is likely to be in the region of £100 million as large engineering projects always exceed their budgets. This amount of money could be used to improve sustainable transport across the city and be put to work fighting climate change rather than increasing it.

Come on, city planners, come up with a creative solution which will genuinely enhance the environment and the lives of Southampton people - a solution for the future not the past.

Lindsi Bluemel

Bitterne Park