May I congratulate, through your estimable journal, Essex County Council and its officers on their attempts to drive cars off the roads.

In view of the recent International Commission on Climate Change report these efforts show remarkable prescience.

Of course, the official reason or ploy given for the redesign of the Harwich Road and Ipswich Road intersections with Cowdray Avenue and St Andrews Avenues is that traffic will flow more freely: single roundabouts are claimed to confuse drivers less than the double ones previously in existence.

I personally haven’t noticed this at the large roundabout at the Avenue of Remembrance/Westway junction.

Indeed closer to the council’s home in Chelmsford, the Moulsham Road old A12 bypass had to have traffic lights fitted to improve the flow at rush hours.

The current temporary changes suggest the opposite of this claim, with tailbacks reaching far up the Ipswich Road and when the railway crossing gates are closed the jam is even worse.

Of course, the true solution, if the council was serious about improving traffic flow, is an integrated intelligent town-wide traffic light system.

Individual ones such as those along the Cowdray Avenue clearly do not work.

But I think if the council really wants to improve traffic flow we will have to await a more technically competent council being elected in the future, although this seems to be the distant future.

Dr David J Greenslade

Colchester