The new transport strategy that Essex County Council and Colchester Borough Council are bringing in is going to have the issue of getting drivers out of their cars.

Drivers will not get out of their cars and onto public transport even if it's free and they get waiting staff serving free coffee or tea.

If we want to cut traffic in the town centre, a congestion charge would have to be introduced.

When it costs £10.50 a time to drive through the town centre, drivers will soon start thinking if they really need to go that way.

This, of course, will move traffic elsewhere and the thorny subject of Brook Street comes up.

Is it time to take a hard look at Brook Street and see what can be done there, up to and including knocking some of the homes down to make the road wider or looking if there is some way of building a road across the allotments and linking up with East Street near the bridge.

Whatever happens some people are going to be upset, but this is the price that will have to be paid for missed opportunities in the past.

Johan Mahoney-Berg

De Grey Road, Colchester