Regarding Millbrook Road West (bus lane) and Costco-related congestion in the Regents Park area.

Millbrook Road is an extremely busy, three lane road where the traffic is flowing steadily nose to tail from 7am till late afternoon every day. It is even busier when cruise ships are in, when Saints play at home, during the Boat Show, or even just when it’s raining.

All three lanes are used and absolutely essential, a fourth lane would actually be even better.

Reducing to two lanes would be an economical and ecological disaster, and potentially create more danger points for fast moving traffic having to change lanes at various points. The proposal to introduce a bus lane from the Millbrook Roundabout to the Millbrook station can have arisen from only one minor problem area.

That is the filter lane at the Regents Park Road traffic lights which was installed, and subsequently extended, to provide easy access towards the Costco site.

At the present time there is a very busy bus stop 20 yards before the lights and when the buses stop there they block the filter lane.

Then when buses move off again they are required to pull out into the adjacent lane. The sheer volume of traffic makes this a difficult.

The solution is simplicity itself. Move the bus stop to the other side of the traffic lights where there may be room to install a bus pull-in if the outside two lanes are slightly realigned on both sides of the junction to make the necessary room.

As regards the Costco access/egress issue, there is only one real problem. Costco has vastly outgrown its present site.

There are insufficient parking spaces for the volume of traffic, the layout on site is all wrong, traffic is crisscrossing each other both on and off site leading to queuing traffic which then backs up off site and onto Regents Park Road.

Furthermore, traffic departing the Costco site is held up by the traffic lights onto Millbrook Road.

The phasing of these lights cannot be adjusted to favour Regents Park Road because of the sheer volume of traffic on Millbrook Road.

The meeting point of these two problems is Regents Park Road outside the BAT/Costco entrance and local residents suffer the backlash.

Potential solutions: Costco need a larger site. Is there any room left at Adanac Park? A number of sites are becoming vacant on First Avenue.

Are any of them large enough? Can anyone suggest anywhere else. Since Costco purchased their site from BAT and have invested large sums of money they may need financial inducements and help from the council to consider moving, but they may also be aware of the problem themselves.

Graham Ward, Valerie Ward and Eileen Harris

Residents affected by the above issues