Sir – The “A415 Action Group” has been formed by Standlake residents in order to present the views of the people of Standlake and protest against Oxfordshire County Council’s proposal to reroute via a new Thames river crossing, huge and unacceptable amounts of unrestricted Traffic through our village.

Whilst we fully support Cumnor in that their village should not suffer from “rat run” traffic, equally Standlake should not be subjected to 1,200 more vehicles per day, including 44-tonne HGVs, using an unsuitable upgraded “B” road.

The A415 Abingdon Road which runs through Standlake is extremely narrow in places with houses within two metres of the road and pavements that are perilous to negotiate — indeed there have been numerous accidents and two very recently. Undoubtedly many more people would be injured or killed if OCC succeed in making this road a major trunk route.

Looking at the notorious Cokethorpe bends where there have been many fatalities and also to the beleaguered residents of Marcham, the argument to keep more traffic off the A415 is reinforced. Traffic should be directed (as was previously promised) to the built-for-purpose trunk roads of the A40, A34 and A420 where money should be spent on improving these routes.

At a public meeting held on December 7, 2009, we received many complaints of “manipulation” and “bias” from visitors to OCC’s “exhibition” at The Rose Revived, who were told that there were no other options than to build a new bridge, despite the fact that OCC have not fully explored with English Heritage the possibility of strengthening the existing bridge to enable vehicles up to ten tonnes to use it (emergency vehicles and buses would still be eligible). They have also not yet concluded their investigations as to the suitability of building a new bridge on a floodplain.

Becky Pickford, Mike Dunk, A415 Action Group, Standlake