RECENT complaints about new Traffic-calming measures in Hyndburn are surely ill-founded.

On close analysis, the council should be congratulated for its far-sightedness. In responding to 'green' issues and promoting the health of its taxpayers, it has provided us with a series of 20-yard cycle lanes.

What could be more pleasurable than spending hours pedalling backwards and forwards inhaling diesel fumes and skilfully evading passing goods vehicles?

The council has also sought to promote full employment and on-the-job training. Traffic calming measures are laid down and the associated white lines painted. Days later, these are redesigned, rebuilt and re-painted. This will ensure that civil engineers and road contractors are the most skilled in the country.

Finally, the proliferation of speed humps should surely be seen for what it is - an attempt to negate future subsidence in what was formerly a mining area.

Your readers, therefore, have no right to complain. After all, they are merely subsidising this crucial programme. Cynics among them, however, may contemplate why the council has not just erected 60ft fences at either end of the borough. It would have been a more cost-effective method of achieving its ultimate aim - the removal of all traffic from our roads.

N A YATES (Mr), Livesey Street, Rishton.

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