SO our poor old city council is cash strapped, is it? Doesn't know where the next square meal -- or baby sitting hand-out -- is coming from? Has been considering closing museums, withdrawing grants from various cultural events and perhaps sacking a few of the people who do what little work is actually done by this nightmare outfit that commits cynical robbery upon the long suffering public on a yearly basis.

Can someone from this political chamber of horrors then please explain the wanton waste of money at the junction of Water Street and Cable Street, i.e. the vehicular exit from Sainsbury's Supermarket.

The situation was quite simple and straightforward. After emerging from Sainsbury's car park the vehicles would filter into two lanes, they would emerge from those two lanes, the vehicles on the right following the one-way system to the top end of town and going into the right-hand lane of the main road.

The vehicles on the left would stay on the left and head over the bridge towards Morecambe or filter into the centre lane of the main road to continue in the direction of Caton. The whole system was controlled by two sets of traffic lights.

But now it has been 'improved!' There is now a veritable forest of traffic lights. Pretty little paving stones have been splashed across Water Street for no reason that any sane person could possibly discern and, at busy periods, we have record-breaking traffic jams.

The other Saturday morning I witnessed an elderly and clearly infirm lady getting out of a taxi in the car park in which she had been sitting for a full 10 minutes.

She was on the verge of tears and was saying 'the meter is already at £2.50. That's what it usually costs me to get home. I just can't afford it.'

She was loaded with around half a dozen plastic carrier bags. She paid the taxi driver, who was sympathising helplessly with her, and walked, or rather staggered, out of the car park on foot. Well done councillors! What wonderful people you are!

There have been no serious accidents at that junction. Neither have there been any serious problems. So what justification can there possibly be for deliberately creating havoc and inconvenience for those who have no other way to do their shopping than by using their cars?

Whose lunatic idea was this waste of money? It is no use saying that it was some anonymous officer trying to justify his existence.

We elect councillors to control these people and take responsibility for their actions.

I wish that I could have spotted one of our touchy-feely 'Green' councillors at the time and have them explain to the elderly lady that she should use the non-existent public transport to and from her council estate and lug her bags to and from the nearest bus stop.

Or perhaps I should have looked for an MBI councillor who would, possibly, have been able to explain that it served her right for being a Lancastrian rather than a Morecambrian.

The sooner we get rid of this present coalition of idealistic half-wits and malevolent nit-wits the better it will be for all of us.

Ray Hill, Lancaster