OH dear! As usual, Pascal Desmond (Citizen, March 27) has twisted the point I was making in my letter published a week earlier. Let me state my case.

1 The feedback from Transport 2000 and other groups generally gives the feel that they DO want people to stop using cars - that is the message that comes across to the general public, anyway.

2 Other modes of transport are expensive, inconvenient and most of the time are not there when you need them, just ask the people who use buses. (They are a privately owned money-making business these day, not a public service, by the way).

3 With reference to congestion charging, it is not the law yet but just another tax imposed on the citizens of this country who pay huge sums for road use already. One of the questions I asked was what happens to the £19 billion we pay in road tax that is not used on roads.

I do not choose which law to obey and which to ignore but what I want to know is can we expect all road users to have to pay congestion charges in the future? If so, bus and taxi passengers and cyclists should be included because they use the roads and contribute to congestion just the same as the rest of us.

4 Finally, the reason for my letter was that these matters have been raised in both the national and local media. Yes, I realise that the war is of more immediate importance and I have my own views on it, but life and other concerns cannot and do not cease.

If Mr Desmond is so bothered about Iraq he should go out there and lend a hand. Perhaps he could help out by building new roads to help civilians get about more quickly after the conflict - sorry, he doesn't believe in new roads, does he?

Ken Partridge, Skerton