GOING Dutch in Jack Straw's Lane (May 30) – more like going stark raving mad.

What is Oxfordshire County Council doing in wasting taxpayers’ money (£70,000), on one of the looniest of ideas so far to hit Oxfordshire. It has wasted our money yet again on some crackpot idea that no one understands, on a problem that affects so few.

So, Jack Straw Lane residents are unhappy with traffic using the road to make a short cut, shock horror. Here’s a suggestion the residents really won’t like – make the road one-way. Then the traffic can only travel past their precious houses in one direction with only a slight inconvenience for the residents (joke). I bet a few readers in Jack Straw’s Lane are choking on their breakfasts as they read this.

This misuse of taxpayers’ money hasn’t improved anything, but it will endanger cyclists when the icy weather returns, because as well as avoiding potholes, they will now have to encounter changing road surfaces that have a slight ridge. Any cyclist will tell you that any ridge, however small, while on an icy road, is dangerous – and this is on a hill.

How about a simple chicane every 50 yards? Strange but it seems to work in all the other places they have them. Perhaps the simpletons in County Hall should take up clog dancing and let normal people make the decisions.

STEVEN BENNETT, Marston Road, Marston, Oxford