Sir – Having spent my youth in Botley, the road into town was always slow and congested due to the constriction of the railway bridge.

The obvious place then to place out of town stores/”Sheds” and allow some idiot to design a road network like a child’s scribble with lights and then nothing moves along it at all for most of the day.

This condition is spreading and I mused on this as I waited to join the London Road, the traffic lights changing three times as I moved two spaces.

For two years we suffered the “London Road improvement” helping traffic to flow more freely into town.

We lost our subway to make the road narrower and the pavements wider. The result of which is a road suitable for cars and buses built before 1960 and no room for bicycles but pavements that will take obese people arm in arm, the only hazard being knocked down by a cyclist as they cannot use the road.

The liberal sprinkling of pedestrian and bus gate lights along with humps. This all calms the traffic to a stop but who calms the driver down?

This need to alter the traffic flow has now come to the Slade and Lime Walk with lumps appearing at the side of the road including one by a bus stop, forcing it to stop in the middle of the road.

I predict a rise in the mortality of cyclists, not only the ones who ride without lights, but due to the lack of road space. A reduction in air quality as motorists wait to move, then what will the experts do? Improve traffic flow?

I would put up with roadworks that resurfaced the roads after last winter, not just repaired potholes but that’s not a fashionable option and when it is, there will be no money left to do it.

When will we as city residents get to vote on the county mucking up our town?

Paul Rivers, Headington