IN the May 29 issue of the Courier, Linda Lever wrote a letter headed "Link Road could well become a white elephant". If she had been referring to the proposed "Western Route", I and many people with whom I have discussed the matter, would agree with her.

Worse than that, if it were built, DCC and MDCC would probably use it as an excuse to avoid tackling the real problems of air pollution and associated heavy traffic affecting the High Street and not only Exeter Road.

However, Linda Lever argues that in the near future, there has to be a decrease in traffic to take account of climate change and oil running out.

In the context of more than 1,000 years of Crediton history, then the "near future" may be 20 years or more. It seems that Tesco will have this sort of time scale built into their business plan, or their investment in the new store would not make sense.

Vehicles are dependent on liquid fuels and air pollution is associated with internal combustion engines. This air pollution affects health, including asthma, other breathing and heart diseases.

At present there are no electric vehicles available on the mass market and it is unrealistic to expect that there could be a sudden change in the vehicle population.

Look how many vehicles you see in Crediton which still have a single letter before numbers on their registration plate.

The Crediton Traffic Action Group (TAG) are determined to prevent the construction of the proposed Western Route or any variant based on it. We note how close it could be to St Boniface's birthplace.

We demand that DCC re-introduce at the consultation in September " the Valley Route" option, which was presented in a very negative fashion at the previous consultation exercise.

This should be adjusted so that its route is slightly further up the edge of the hill to reduce its impact on the flood plain.

TAG are going to mount a poster campaign in Crediton and conduct traffic censuses to count vehicles over 12 hour periods probably at the Charlotte Street, East Street junction; volunteers needed to help with this.

There are also plans for a demonstration in Crediton with TV, radio and press present, to show how strongly Crediton people feel that neither Mid Devon nor county have provided, or planned, any acceptable solution to Crediton's problems.

John Boyle

Fordton Cottage

Fordton

Crediton

EX17 3DH