Having watched from close quarters the incredibly slow progress of constructing the Hilperton bypass, I would like to offer some explanations as to the delays.

Doing a bit of rummaging through the internet, I noticed that the second Severn Crossing was built in four years. This is a six-lane suspension bridge, five kilometres long, over a dirty great tidal river. How then can it take so long to lay half-a-mile of two-lane carriageway road, across an already open field when the only obstacles to overcome are two hedgerows ?

The answer may lie with the contractor, Bristlewand, and its decision to employ just five people to undertake the work. I’ve never seen more on site and I must pass both ends of the road four or five times each day.

I can’t blame the workmen for the delays, they’re woefully short staffed and may well have been held up by the ongoing gas utility works along Wyke Road. This project, with a decent sized crew, should only have taken a couple of months.

In response to Mr Robert Dunn’s letter (July 3) regarding the size and design of the new road, I would like to point out that this is a bypass in name only. Persimmon Homes, who, I understand, are paying for this, have effectively constructed an access road for a new housing estate on the Gap, planning permission being much easier to obtain once a road is in place.

A more logical route for a bypass would have been from the Kings Arms roundabout, following the canal, to the old Semington roundabout. HGVs heading for the south coast or junction 17 of the M4 would then bypass not only Hilperton but also Staverton and Holt.

Don’t forget, once houses start going up, this stretch of road will suddenly start sprouting all sorts of traffic jamming, sorry, calming, measures. Not much of a bypass after that?

I can only hope that, when Persimmon do apply to build on the Gap, as they will, this incompetence in completing a simple stretch of road is remembered and taken into account when the application is considered.

J Slatter, Foxglove Drive, Hilperton.