Our perverse council spent only £6,500 of our money (pocket monies to them) on February 5 recruitment of nearly 3,000 consultants for polled advice on the HCZ question.

In the space of only five hours that evening 1,669 of the ‘lay’ (Alex Campbell) participants voted against the scheme, a majority of 354, 11.9 per cent.

These figures represented the opinions of those resident in the area deemed by the council to be entitled to vote on the subject; allowing no account of the significant numbers of persons in the surrounding hamlets potentially affected by the intended scheme.

The whole project has been the usual Wiltshire smoke and mirrors, hype and spin focus presentation, culminating in the admission by Cllr Thomson that the £250,000 plus spent on the Market Street drainage works was necessary expenditure as a result of deficiencies revealed by problems of flooding. Council-presented costings are an iceberg.

For at least half a century the council were advised that traffic lights were essential at the Leigh Park Hotel crossroads, B3105/B3109, as the only way of ensuring a significant reduction in accidents. Seven, in five days, was the best score...

Belatedly, the council have spent our money on providing traffic lights, resulting in reduced time on 999 calls, demand on police, fire and ambulance attendance budgets, those resources available for other emergencies.

Council have remained true to form in refusing Bradford on Avon a one-way system, at very least for a trial 12-month all-seasons period. Pat Ladd is the latest to voice the request made by many long-term residents in the congestion catchment area.

Bradford on Avon is a sprawled roundabout on the junction of six major traffic routes, with continuous usage which takes no account of hopelessly outdated road classifications.

The Somerset town of Frome is an example of what can be achieved to improve traffic flow in a medieval Historic Working Town situated astride a river. They made a start in the 60s, mitigating the river flooding problems at source as an essential long before Jenson Button’s Bridge was smoothly voted into being.

Mr H Hazell, Leigh Road, Bradford on Avon.