"CHURCH Ward Voter" (Your Letters, April 23) is entitled to support the council's imposition of cycle lanes.

But as another "Church Ward Voter", and a local councillor, I feel duty bound to represent the vast majority of people who oppose cycle lanes, which not only reduce the road width and so slow the traffic movements but also, in other places, endanger pedestrians.

Church Ward Conservatives asked residents their views on the cycle lane in Bolton Road through their In Touch newsletter and the majority of respondents, as well as letter writers and surgery visitors, were opposed. In addition, I conducted a morning rush-hour survey and I am hoping to repeat this exercise soon.

My daily observations, while waiting long periods for the 471 bus, still suggest a very small number of cyclists (two this morning in 35 minutes) and hardly any of them are children - they tend to use the pavements in my experience!

Bury is no Fenland town: it is not Cambridge or Peterborough and, apart from a few leading Labour councillors and seniors officers, I guess few working people with briefcases or mums with shopping are going to desert their cars, or buses, or trams, for a cycle ride up steep hills in the rain. Meanwhile, Bolton Road's traffic flows are halved, which contributes to regular traffic jams often stretching back up to two miles through the ward in a morning.

I have certainly welcomed proposals in the past for an off-street recreational cycle lane from Church

Ward over the river into the town centre, but there is little progress to report on this.

Over many years I have had to take sides in response to residents' lobbying on a variety of issues, including controversial planning application, and I have tried to be principled and consistent. It is not easy. The only way to avoid upsetting anyone is to express no views on anything.

The moral to this is that no one should enter politics expecting to be universally popular all of the time, and perhaps I am being over-sensitive in responding to a brief dig. Church Ward candidate Bob Bibby might well be advised to ignore anonymous contributors who are clearly intent on mischief.

COUNCILLOR ROY-E WALKER,

(Another "Church Ward Voter").

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