NOTHING is forever! But we all tend to fall into the trap of assuming that life will always carry on in much the same way.

When people think about the traffic situation in Crediton, they imagine the volume of traffic continuing to go up, lorries continuing to rumble through on their way to supermarkets and ever more commuter traffic to and from Exeter.

They think that the only solution to this can be more road building.

However, life does change and changes can come about very rapidly, as has been seen with the Berlin Wall, South African apartheid and the current economic crisis.

I believe that, in the near future, we will see very big changes as people realise that climate change has to be tackled urgently and as oil supplies begin to dwindle and become much more expensive.

If we are to have any hope for the future, instead of an increase in traffic there will be a decrease and a much better public transport system.

The vehicles that are on the road will tend to be electric, so that air quality will improve.

As the price of oil rises it will become uneconomic to transport food and other goods about as we do now, so that more will be produced locally, with more people working on the land.

It's time that our councils and councillors started thinking more constructively and laterally, taking climate change and peak oil into account.

A link road could well become a "white elephant". Instead of spending money on a construction involving untold greenhouse gas emissions, perhaps they could come up with a truly alternative plan for cutting traffic and pollution?

Linda Lever

Furlongs

Long Barn

Crediton