Sir – I refer to the article Roundabout is dangerous (March 19).

The article highlights what is a very poor design at the Abingdon Road/Southern Bypass roundabout and this is defended by the county council as being determined by the “geometry of existing carriageways” and that altering them would have led to higher costs.

While there were some geometric changes to the roundabout, the section of road to which the article refers to is the new section of road that cuts through the roundabout.

The area in which this link has been built was open walkways linking subways and was approximately four metres below carriageway level. This new section essentially links two pieces of carriageway that were in existence before the works were undertaken and remain at about the same level.

The dip that has been designed into this new section of road has nothing to do with the geometry of the existing carriageway but more to do with bad design. If the dip has been designed in to save money what are those savings and have the costs of potential accidents that may be caused by the design been taken into account?

John Cramer
Botley