IT is hardly surprising that Ashley Road, Parkstone, has failed a pollution test (Daily Echo, January 8). Places like Winton and Boscombe must be in a near similar position. The clever traffic planners have, over the past years, wasted many thousands (if not millions) of pounds of public money blocking off countless side roads or making them into one-way streets, thereby greatly reducing or totally eliminating alternative routes. Consequently, more and more traffic has to use the main roads through shopping areas which, of course, causes the resultant congestion.

All the time there is the ongoing hype about reducing pollution while councils, it appears, are doing their best to create it.

R TUCK, Pardy’s Hill, Corfe Mullen