Sir, I would like to report a horrendous crime that is being committed in our once beautiful market town. The crime is murder. The method, strangulation. The accused, Cumbria County Council and Kendal's Traffic Steering Committee. The evidence could fill your paper, never mind the Letters page.

As we spend more and more time behind the wheel of our vehicles trying just to go about our daily lives, having asked my local councillor for some mitigating evidence he informs me that the pollution levels in Stricklandgate have dropped! Well, hooray for Stricklandgate with very low residential level what about the tenfold increase in pollution for the poor residents living on the streets of our rat-runs?

Motorists do not really want to go via Green Road, Kendal Green, Caroline Street, Cross Street, Burneside Road and Busher Walk just to get into the town. They are forced by a traffic scheme that is not working.

Any more mitigating evidence? Oh yes park and ride scheme tell me, with the weather we have been having, who would stand waiting for a bus on Kendal Fell? Perhaps the same three people who are sitting on the single decker bus waiting to get through Kendal, as the bus struggled to fight its way through the blocked traffic, causing yet more hold ups.

I must question the business sense of Booths' new development, when shoppers are deserting the town centre in their droves. The number of shops empty or occupied that are For Sale is frightening.

May I urge the voting public of this town to write to the Cumbria County Council and MP to abandon this stupid and unworkable traffic scheme before they squeeze the last breath out of our town forever?

R.D. Berrie, Kendal