YOUR article about the new river crossing provokes, apart from an ironic and twisted smile, a few comments and questions.

First, a crossing at Breinton is judged “good enough” - good enough for what? To be, on its own, as useful as will be the Rotherwas Access Road on its own? Where would this Western “Relief Road” (teacher has forbidden us ever again to use the word bypass) start and finish? On the A465, perhaps, somewhere on the Abergavenny side of Belmont Tesco, crossing the river by Warham, and joining the Brecon Road on Kings Acre Road?

But that would only make sense, and justify the cost, if it continued north, to the west of Huntington to join the upgraded Roman Road, where the A4103 could, in theory, take traffic from South Wales through Bobblestock and Holmer, to head north on the A49 or east to Bromyard and Worcester. This would offer some relief to Newmarket Street and Commercial Road - and the proposed new road along the front of the railway station (what an interesting junction that would be).

But a western bridge solves nothing as regards the traffic on the A49, whether heading north, or skirting the city centre to go east - unless you build a new road to Belmont past Grafton from the A49, perhaps from the new as-yet-unapproved roundabout.

The Rotherwas Access Road was perhaps conceived as a Trojan horse. On its own, its only use is for traffic heading for Rotherwas from the south, or leaving Rotherwas to head south. For traffic from east, west or north it is useless.

The pollution on Holme Lacy Road and Ross Road, already often above legal limits, will hardly be alleviated, nor congestion diminished. So why build it at all - unless the idea was to sneak a new bridge over the Wye between Hampton Park and Hampton Bishop, and, when no one was looking, extend it along the western edge of the Lugg Flats, to join the roundabout at the bottom of Aylestone Hill?

There we have a glimmer of sensible planning for the quality of life in the city - but what would the cost be - not just in monetary terms but in the impact of the demands from “developers coveting the county” - a terrifying honest phrase, for who would trust our councillors not to sell what little remains of our birthright for a mess of pottage?

Your aerial photograph illustrates the likely price of the Rotherwas Access Road - the infilling with houses and “amenities” of all the green rectangle bounded by the road itself and the city boundary. And how safe and how long will the farmland south of Norton Brook or west of the A49 at Grafton prove to be?

Councillor Roger Phillips speaks brave words. I don’t know if he was around - I was - when the battles were fought with the NIMBY-ists and fritillary-lovers over the eastern bypass and its route over the allegedly unploughed ancient water meadows by the Lugg. (Allegations later proved to be untrue).

But the western route also has recognised scenic and scientific claims to be left undisturbed: no wonder the inspectors lost patience with the warning factions, proclaimed: ‘a plague on all your houses’, and walked away from the scene of futility.

Then ring roads went out of fashion: the imminent death of road traffic and the disinvention of the internal combustion engine was proclaimed; Treasury money dried up, and the window of opportunity was slammed in our squabbling faces. (Would that something similar could happen to the ESG).

As to a timescale, judging by past history. ‘never’ might be the most realistic word: but I think our council leader must expect a long haul, nearer to 14 years than four. After all, the ESG is going to take 20 years and £200 million pounds; and, like cattle markets and Olympic Games, everything in British politics costs at least twice as much as the number first thought of!

PETER WILLIAMS, Ross Road, Hereford.