YOUR correspondent M McDonagh (Letters, January 10) asks me to respond to comments about traffic congestion, and I am pleased to do so.

Bournemouth council is dedicating significant resources towards relieving congestion along Castle Lane East and outside Royal Bournemouth Hospital (RBH). This is a very busy route, with particular problems caused by the large number of vehicles joining from Deansleigh Road and RBH. The various stages of development at RBH have been achieved without all the necessary additional developers’ investment in highway infrastructure and this is a significant cause of the increased congestion. The council is already working closely with RBH and other businesses to improve the situation and is assessing a number of road improvement options. In addition, we are supporting these businesses in developing sustainable workplace travel plans.

I would certainly expect a highly developed organisation such as RBH to be leaders in the field of travel planning. In return, the council continues its commitment to ensuring Bournemouth’s road network is maintained to a high standard.

Our priority is to keep the town moving and, through additional government funding through Three Towns Travel, we have been working with employers and their staff to encourage them to walk, cycle or take the bus to work.

Without concentrating on these initiatives, government funding would not have been made available to Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch.

Through Three Towns Travel we have invested in the large bus hub at RBH and provided assistance through the recently formed Business Travel Network, which has led to the positive development of a draft Travel Action Plan for RBH, in a bid to encourage their staff to travel sustainably. This is an important priority as more and more of us want to use our cars and that is clearly not sustainable. Any development involving direct access on to the Wessex Way will be extremely expensive and will have to be funded from resources the council does not possess. Such a scheme might well require funding of anything between £5m-to-£10m or more.

The council is working hard on initiatives to achieve a reduction in traffic congestion, but will require a concerted joint effort with all the surrounding organisations and businesses.

If M McDonagh would like to contact me I should be happy to meet and explain the options available to the council and the community.

CLLR JOHN BEESLEY, Leader of the council