I read with interest an article on car dependency in Colchester and a letter from councillor Martin Goss regarding the building of another 1,600 houses in Mile End and made a simple connection between the two.

It seems there is simply too much traffic on the existing road system, with more coming with each new housing development. I understand Myland Community Council is having to resort to employing traffic engineers, at the tax-payers’ expense, to prove the additional impact of yet more houses as there is no sensible traffic strategy offered by either the Colchester or Essex authorities.

Due to the traffic problems in Colchester, I cycle to work and have encouraged my two children to use alternative forms of transport. Unfortunately, during the last cycle trip we took, my eight-year-old was pushed out of the cycle lane into the kerb by a bus encroaching on to the cycle lane, due to the weight of other traffic. Therefore, she is now scared of cycling. So I discounted cycling as an option for my 11-year-old and decided to research buses for her daily trip to school.

As she only lives 2.7 miles from her school, she is apparently not entitled to use a school bus, which is for those who live more than three miles away. I went to the travel office near the bus station and was told to come back nearer the time I needed the ticket to start.

I went back two weeks ago to then be told they did not sell tickets for the No 2 bus and I needed to go to Whitehall Industrial Estate to purchase a ticket from another bus company. I rang them up and asked for a ticket to get my daughter to school and they said I needed to contact Essex County Council (where I started three months ago).

I explained I just wanted a ticket to save her having to search for change every morning and was told I could purchase a child season ticket, but it was not valid for journeys before 9am!

Having spent hours trying to sort out her travel, she will now simply have to take cash and hold up the bus while she pays for a ticket every day and, of course, some buses require exact change, which is an additional worry for her.

In addition, she will still have to walk for 20 minutes at the end of the bus trip as there is no direct bus, so her entire trip will be 40 minutes door to door – a journey I can do in 15 minutes in the car.

I cannot understand how the developers of the proposed 1,600 additional homes in North Colchester think there can possibly be a shift to buses when it is so difficult to purchase a suitable ticket, the service does not get you to where you want to go and it takes so much longer and is more expensive than travelling by car.

Jan Blake

Mile End Road

Colchester