RECENT letters from Cllrs Beesley and Williams claiming that the Wessex Fields scheme would reduce traffic on Castle Lane in the long term are simply untrue. They obviously have not read the transport assessment in their own planning application. Claiming you can reduce traffic when adding 2,000 workers onto the site is clearly nonsense. Unspecified and untested “snap polls” don’t cut it. Castle Lane East and West are shown to gain hundreds more vehicles and Deansleigh Road in front of the hospital becomes a rat-run. Also, the hospital plans, if accepted, add 822 and Tringham House, opposite, 290 more workers.

I also suggest the councillors look at the 2017 Council for the Protection of Rural England report The End of the Road? by consultants Transport for Quality of Life, which examined 86 official government studies of completed road schemes. It “reveals that road building is failing to provide the congestion relief and economic benefit promised while devastating the environment”. If you can’t be bothered, at least listen to the two-and-a-half minute animation that exactly describes the situation at Wessex Fields:

cpre.org.uk/resources/transport/roads/item/4543-the-end-of-the-road-challenging-the-road-building-consensus

The last administration took a sledgehammer to democracy. This Unity Alliance is determined to make it work and is demonstrating a willingness to really listen to people. Stop living in the past and trying to undermine them Cllrs Beesley and Williams. Listen to the experts and the scientists. Our children deserve a better future.

W. SHARP

Chair, Holdenhurst Village Parish Meeting, Elm Cottages, Holdenhurst Village