I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with Alan Burden’s letter (Echo, June 2) regarding how the cycle lanes are actually increasing pollution rather than lowering it.

Myself and others have tried to point this out to BH Active Travel only for them to close their ears to what they do not want to hear, preferring to make excuse after excuse as to why their utopian ideologies they want in the BCP area is the answer to the pollution caused by the amount of traffic in the conurbation.

They fail to see that their ideas actually increase pollution and indeed, the recent news that this area is the most polluted in Britain shows that forcing busy traffic into concentrated spots rather than spread out as it was before has the complete opposite effect.

Yes I know central Government is pushing active travel and our council has funding for it, but it is all down to using common sense at the end of the day, and not putting cycle lanes into areas in which would actually increase pollution rather than reduce it. Some of the schemes are downright ridiculous.

This is why I urge voters to consider this at the next local elections and for councillors to stand for correcting this imbalance on our local road network. We need traffic calming, not the opposite which is what we are getting at the moment.

BRIGITTE BARNES Terrace Road, Bournemouth