I WAS astounded to read that the chairman of BCP Council’s planning committee used his casting vote to approve a new Aldi store at Branksome.

Surely everyone knows the appalling traffic conditions surrounding Redlands, or worse, actually experienced them. No less than five busy roads converge onto two multi-lane roundabouts within yards of each other, plus umpteen sets of pedestrian light signals.

The resulting chaos doesn’t necessarily occur at peak times either.

The area is already well served by numerous supermarkets such as Tesco, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Co-op and Waitrose, as well as a wide variety of convenience stores.

What makes matters worse is that the site has, for a number of years, been earmarked for the building of a care home, desperately needed at present.

Dominating the current news is the bed-blocking crisis in our hospitals caused by patients being unable to be discharged.

They cannot be sent home if there is no one there to look after them and they cannot move, even on a short term basis, into a care home if there are no available beds.

Given that a cash-strapped BCP Council seems to be able to consider paying £12 million for Barclays House, surely they can afford to build a care home?

This would ‘kill two birds with one stone’ – by helping to free up our NHS beds whilst not adding to our traffic woes.

DANIEL CAMPBELL

Linden Road, Poole