THE Echo report that a new national survey "reveals" the Bournemouth/Christchurch/Poole conurbation to be one of the UK's most traffic-congested areas must, to anyone trying to drive locally, make it one of the worst kept secrets ever?!

The need for vision and aspiration in tackling this, against the background of a still increasing population, is one of the key reasons that we need one unified council.

Efforts by the Dorset LEP and various joint bodies over the years have failed to grasp the problem - spending quite a lot of money but just nibbling at the edges of the problem.

Meanwhile, in some of the other city areas, futuristic alternative public and other transport plans have turned dreams to reality.

We need one strong voice.

So often, the appeals to central government, from our complicated local government set-up, end up disjointed and politically watered down - no competition to the demands of other parts of the country which we hear bidding their case in the media every day.

The costs, in terms of delays and pollution, of our present struggling infrastructure make things unsustainable.

The reported talks between local councils and Dorset business are welcome but, with the greatest respect, we've had a lot of those over the years.

Traffic congestion in our conurbation, approaching gridlock at peak times, is a major problem and it needs one authority with one voice and some combined vision and aspiration to sort it out.

Hopefully, the government will very shortly agree to the request to bring the administration of the three boroughs together and a new council should have a great opportunity to start turning words into action.

DOUGLAS EYRE

Unite the Conurbation Campaign group