I’M SCRATCHING my head, yet again, over the design decision making of the Oxford road engineers; I scratched it over their decision to spend a huge amount of taxpayers’ money installing unnecessary traffic lights on the A34/ Botley roundabout which had performed extremely well without them and had its flow or lack of it, completely messed up by them.

Now, my further head-scratching concerns the continuing spending of countless millions of tax payers’ money on the Wolvercote and Cutteslowe roundabouts and their approach roads.

Could someone please explain the logic of the engineers causing a year of huge delays for the unfortunate commuters of Oxford and for through traffic going west, north and south-east, of changing only slightly, the approach roads to the roundabouts and then putting traffic lights on them?

Sorry engineers, but by doing this you’ve returned the same massive queues you caused whilst the road works were grinding away for a year!

I drove up from the Peartree and was confronted with a stationary queue the length of the road leading on to the Wolvercote roundabout; I got on to the roundabout and the lights stopped me proceeding on what was an empty part of the roundabout for at least four seconds, with just five cars being able to fit in behind me.

Then, when I was released by the lights I drove down the Woodstock Road with a traffic queue on the other side approaching the Wolvecote roundabout, stretching back to Farndon Road. What must happen in the mornings and evenings during the rush hours is beyond imagination!

For goodness sake engineers haven’t you realised yet? If you put traffic lights on a roundabout, it isn’t a roundabout any longer, it is simply a cross-roads.

The enormous amounts of money ‘reshaping’ the roundabouts, simply to park cars around it whilst they wait to move off from the lights is a huge waste of money when a more efficient cross-roads could have been designed, using up less land.

Take the traffic lights away and save us money and unnecessary frustrations! For example, look at your miraculous decision to remove the traffic lights at the station and Frideswide Square roundabouts; what happened with their removal? Traffic moves beautifully.

PETER SISSONS

Appleton Road, Cumnor