I WOULD like to thank County Cllr Jonathan Sear for replying to my recent letter regarding the economic benefits of the Western Bypass.

Like his Green Party colleague, Cllr Jon Barry, Coun Cllr Sear does not seem able to understand that someone writing a letter may be doing so as themselves and not representing an organisation.

Yes, I am member of the Labour Party, but I am writing to express my own views on the Western Bypass and to highlight the Green Party's highly misleading and dangerous position.

I can only assume that Coun Cllr Sear was not selected by the Green Party for his skill at mathematics or logic.

He has proposed in his letter that the industrial land that is available now and would be opened up by building the Western Bypass could be replaced by developing the brewery site and the Kingsway site.

The maths of this is simple -- 88 hectares opened up by building the Western Bypass or 3.53 hectares (or just over four per cent of that available with the Western Bypass).

These are not green fields either, but brownfield sites already allocated for industrial development.

Coun Cllr Sear also mentioned that the Lune Mills site for industrial development was a flood risk.

True, it flooded once in 1906, but I could not find when it flooded either before or after that year.

Perhaps Coun Cllr Sear could explain to those people in the district who would welcome inward investment and jobs why he seems to be making excuses to oppose both. Something occurs to me. Maybe the Green Party's strategy for getting rid of cars in the Lancaster district is that in the future people will either:

have to move away to get work -- so they won't be driving cars in the district.

they won't be able to afford cars because there are no jobs here.

Richard Newman-Thompson

Prospect Street

Lancaster