PREDICTABLY I did not think it would be long before Susan Stockwell responded to my letter regarding the cost effectiveness of cycle lanes.

I note that she does not dispute the points that I made regarding the vast sums of money being spent in this locality alone, on the installation of cycle lanes, and the fact that you will never see thousands of people using them each day, to even begin justifying the money spent on installing and maintaining them.

She does however make some valid points regarding health issues, again these benefits could only be considered relevant if thousands of people converted to cycling, as opposed to car travel, and as I said before, it’s not going to happen.

Everybody would like to see cleaner air but to this end the scientific advances made with regard to emissions, over recent years has and will far outweigh any benefits gained from the small number of people converting from car travel to cycling.

In addition, this will in no small way be assisted by the conversion to electric vehicles, however this is for future discussion.

Susan Stockwell makes many more statements in her letter, which may or may not be true, such as reduced street crime and business owners having more parking spaces for staff and customers with fewer cars on the road, a little contradictory this point if I may say so.

Sadly, I believe many of the points she makes in her letter may well be wishful thinking, facts seem to prove otherwise for many of the points she makes, because as I said before many people cycle for pleasure, in addition to their car use which in itself is a good thing health-wise.

COLIN MOYES

Harkwood Drive, Hamworthy