TO paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, there are three things certain in life – taxes, death and the weekly letter from Mrs Farley.

There is no doubt that there are safety and pollution issues in the Exeter Road area of the town, but there are issues right through the High Street as well. My wife is disabled and uses a mobility scooter, so I am fully aware of the issues faced by wheelchair and scooter uses right through the town.

Having read her weekly missives I would like to play something of the Devil's Advocate, without getting too involved in the debate. However, there appear to be three options to solve the issues being presented by Mrs Farley, as I see them:

A simple pedestrian crossing, possibly in the vicinity of the old Post Office, a light controlled crossing at the same place and, most radical of all, introduce traffic calming measures, widen the pavement and reduce the road to a single width with traffic flow controlled by traffic lights.

But then we would have great big lorries stopped waiting for the lights to change and pumping out copious quantities of pollution which somewhat defeats the object.

I like to deal in facts. To date, all I have seen are those presented by Mrs Farley and on at least two occasions these have shown to be incorrect. Perhaps the Courier should start looking at the facts and presenting them so that your readers can get the complete picture, i.e. how many accidents involving injury have taken place in Exeter Road compared with the High Street over the last, say, 10 years?

How many people cross Exeter Road on a daily basis compared to the High Street? What is the average speed of traffic in Exeter Road compared with the High Street; how many times a day is the speed limit broken in both Exeter Road and the High Street and when?

There are also similar questions about pollution levels which should be asked.

At the end of the day, yes there is a problem in Exeter Road, but there is also one in the High Street, as there are in towns and villages throughout this area.

The agencies which deal with roads and road safety will look at facts like those above and will make their planning decisions based on them so that they can spend their limited resources for the benefit of the majority of road users (including pedestrians).

That is not to say that I agree with all their decisions per se; as far as I am concerned the only way the issues being discussed can be solved is to build a bypass not a "white elephant" aka the link road.

Name and address

supplied