I AM a Yorkshire resident and regularly travel to western France using Brittany Ferries’ routes. Most recently I used the Poole-Cherbourg route, returning to Poole about 10pm on Monday, March 21.

My wife and I had travelled several hundred miles in France followed by a rough sea crossing, but nothing prepared us for the utter chaos that we found on the streets of Poole and Bournemouth as we tried to travel north.

A series of road closures saw us and dozens of other vehicles from the ferry forced onto unfamiliar back roads instead of the dual carriageways and motorways.

Diversion signs were confusing and contradictory. Diversions from closed roads forced us to smaller roads that also had road works.

My question is, who plans and coordinates this? Who risk assesses the need to protect road workers against the clear danger of sending motorists, including HGVs onto back roads with tired and confused drivers?

This surely creates risk to motorists and local residents alike. It took us several hours longer to make our journey home, arriving exhausted and angry just before dawn.

The 240-mile journey saw four complete closures with long detours and 17 other road work schemes but the roads in the Bournemouth area were the worst signed and poorest organised. This is not safe.

In the event, we have voted with our feet and moved our next journeys away from the area altogether. We won’t return.

Is this what was anticipated or did the planners not consider the effect of their scheme or the existence of others in neighbouring areas? Your town and businesses lose out from visitors and custom. It was a night to forget.

ANDREW WEST

Thornhill Road, Harworth, Doncaster

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