SOME of my colleagues and I attended county hall to discuss with members of the highways and transport committee traffic calming measures in Hyndburn.

After the usual pleasantries, I asked a question about public consultation and how county went about this issue.

I was told they spent thousands of pounds on this exercise. "How do you carry this out?" I asked. A letter to the houses was the answer. But they had no figures on replies to these letters.

They wanted to know why I was so interested in public consultation as it "costs thousands of pounds and we would like to see less consultation as it only gets in the way and slows things down."

I could not believe what I was hearing when the vice-chairman went on to say: "If we cannot agree then we will go ahead and calm the traffic anyway, with or without Hyndburn's co-operation." With this I left the meeting disgusted.

I asked the logic behind the traffic calming on the canal bridge in Clayton-le-Moors, where a car is forced into the path of oncoming traffic if a bus stops to pick up. We know nothing about this, the committee said. Four of our Labour county councillors were sitting in the room. I find this not hard to believe, as they said nothing all through the meeting. They just nodded their heads in agreement with the chairman. Roll on the next county elections.

COUN RUSS DAVIES, Lancaster Drive, Clayton le Moors.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.