I was saddened to read a few weeks ago that Councillor Bentley and his blunderers at County Hall have targeted our beloved Crouch Street for their next area of destruction and deformation under the guise of improved cycle and pedestrian routes.

One would have thought that they would have leaned their lesson after the recent Headgate debacle where, in their wisdom, they spent taxpayers’ money adding cycle lanes only to have to spend more to remove them because they were hardly being used by cyclists.

The road could much better be used for easing traffic congestion, even though they couldn’t even get that quite right, by having one lane turning only right into St Johns Street.

Pity they didn’t survey how much traffic actually used the right turn before painting the arrows in the road. It will be, of course, a much larger act of folly with Crouch Street.

It’s one of the few areas of Colchester where people can park and access the shops and restaurants locally without going into the depths of the already destroyed town centre.

I read with horror Councillor Lewis Barber’s misguided vision of how Crouch Street will be changed by his idea of “continued improvement” (Gazette Letters, June 1, “Our vision for travel in Colchester”).

My first question is has anyone actually done a proper survey as to how many cyclists will actually use the cycle infrastructure that he describes in his article.

As for cyclists and pedestrians walking into town and increasing spending, well apart from those that already live in the close proximity, it’s nonsense as pedestrians and cyclists have very limited carrying capacity.

It doesn’t help getting people from the surrounding villages back into an already-depleted town centre.

Unfortunately the “kill the car” lobby seems to have a disproportionate amount of influence.

The net result has been to virtually already destroy the town centre shopping by making it difficult to access the town and coupled with the prohibitive cost of parking it’s no surprise that out-of-town shopping is thriving, no wonder some of the large retailers are looking to move out of the town centre.

On the subject of air quality, Councillor Barber has not taken into account that the use of electric and hybrid vehicles is doubling around every three years - adding charging points would be a plus for the town centre.

The most concerning thing is that a lot of the small businesses and restaurants in the Crouch Street area will soon struggle because people with vehicles wont be able to get near to them and that is there unique selling point.

Paul Absolon Mill Lane, Birch