A LETTER in the Evesham Journal about growing traffic issues in Evesham has prompted a leading councillor to speak out, stressing Worcestershire County Council is taking action.

In last week's Journal Patrick Staines wrote that excitement about new developments in the town was being "muted by concerns about the growing traffic problem".

"It is increasingly difficult to get into and out of town, and this simple

fact is a real and obvious threat to the town’s continued economic and social progress," the Evesham resident said.

"Measures such as reducing the frequency of traffic stoppages at the pedestrian crossing lights on the High Street do help, but not nearly enough."

He added a plan to extend the one way system round a larger part of the town "seemed to merit more thought" and urged authorities to plan "to prevent the steady strangulation of Evesham".

After seeing the letter Worcestershire County councillor Ken Pollock, the member responsible for economy and infrastructure, wrote to us with his views saying that the town's traffic issues including congestion "cannot be remedied by a simple, single solution."

Cllr Pollock said: "It is widely understood that many people face difficulties moving around Evesham.

"Congestion is of course the most apparent difficulty, affecting many of the town's roads and the A46 Trunk Road that skirts around the town.

"A measured, incremental package of schemes that considers all modes of transport is needed.

"The development and delivery of such a package of schemes is the approach that Worcestershire County Council is taking by seeking to assess what schemes there might be that can be delivered in the shorter term, developing medium term schemes, and all the while, building the business case for longer term schemes.

"Members of the public did kindly share with us a number of ideas for changing the roads in Evesham, and this included a large, one-way gyratory.

"To ensure that due regard was given a consultancy was commissioned to assess the feasibility.

"The consultant's findings addresses (the) proposal - 'trip distance for any kind of access to the town centre - whether for the private motorist, for HGVs servicing the town centre shops or even for cyclists - would be greatly increased, inevitably increasing congestion'.

"This alone rules out this proposal.

"Access for each of the emergency services would be significantly worsened.

"This too would be reason enough to rule the proposal out.

"The proposal to create a town-centre-wide gyratory came with a supporting proposal which was to simply reverse the flow of the envisaged one-way system.

"Reversing the flow would not mitigate any of the problems."

Cllr Pollock also encouraged residents to keep up to date with the authority's approach, by visiting the Evesham Transport Strategy webpage at worcestershire.gov.uk/evesham.