THE CHIEF Executive and Transportation manager of Herefordshire Council are directly responsible for the distress of four young children who had to wait while a normal 20-minute school run took two hours.

The children must have thought I had forgotten them. Instead, I was part of the appalling gridlock throughout Hereford.

I wish to publicly thank the staff of Aylestone and Lord Scudamore Schools for their care of my children for over an hour while they waited for me.

How the teachers and staff got home through the stationary traffic, I dread to think.

God bless everyone trapped in the floods and the traffic.

I understand Hereford is a small medieval city, I have lived here for nearly 40 years but all the other small medieval cities I know have solved their flood and traffic problems with ring-roads and extra bridges and relief roads. Their planners and council officers have worked with vision and energy to do so. Hereford has failed to do so.

Money has been available from Europe but the apathy our council executives manifest has failed to gain it. This is absurd.

I know many people involved in property development across England. Their perception of Hereford is "Don't go there!"

Driving into Herefordshire from Wales or England, the roads deteriorate dramatically the moment the border is crossed.

No-one wishes to live west of the river, because of the delays in crossing into the city. Half the county has low property values as the direct result of this. The effect on the local economy is dire.

I drive the Bromyard-Hereford road daily and the state of the road surface (especially in wet weather and around the new gravel pits) is appalling. The junction with the Hereford-Worcester road is terrifying, and should be re-made as a roundabout, as with the Yarkhill crossroads.

Demolish the eyesores of the Greyhound pub and Riverside Restaurant, invite Asda and their cash in to sort out the Belmont roundabout, build the Rotherwas relief road, use the existing rail network creatively, tidy up High Town, get the Edgar Street plan activated, and build another bridge (or preferably two).

The council has been paying out our money on overpriced design schemes for decades, yet never bothering to activate them. It is high time for Hereford to get its act together.

JULIA HAWKES-MOORE,

Ullingswick, Hereford.