ANYONE regularly travelling from Tavistock to Plymouth cannot failed to have noticed the continual disruption caused by roadworks along the A386.

The cable-laying earlier this year was bad enough, compounded by much of it having to be resurfaced just weeks after it was completed when the new surface began to break up.

Now Horrabridge is having its roads torn to shreds and then resurfaced but on such a piecemeal basis that it hardly seems worthwhile. Great chunks of tarmac are being gouged up and replaced in patches, and the edges of some of those are already beginning to pothole.

Wouldn't it make far more sense to resurface the entire road through the village instead of taking short-term expedient measures which will only see the contractors back to effect more repairs in a few months' time, causing more delay?

I'm living in hope that full resurfacing is the intention, but I fear we'll simply end up with a patchwork of repairs which will ultimately cost us ratepayers more to sustain than if the job had been done properly in the first place.

Jason Clark

43 Westbridge Cottages

Tavistock

WITHOUT commenting on the merits or otherwise of the new traffic calming measures in Whitchurch, could I try to bring some perspective to the recent debate in these pages?

There were and still remain strong calls to reduce the speed and volume of traffic through Whitchurch and Grenofen.

Whatever the perceived dangers of the rural gateway, there are many places in Devon where roads narrow with little warning. There would be an outcry if these were to be widened.

Several years ago, a pedestrian was knocked down and killed by a car near Ash Farm. It is faster, heavier traffic which has been urbanising this rural lane, not the gateway.

The measures that have been installed are probably the minimum that any highways authority could do to discourage the road's use as a rat-run. In view of the criticism they have attracted, it should not be surprising if road engineers were wary of introducing other traffic calming, such as speed ramps in Whitchurch village.

The present design may have shortcomings but to concentrate on these without addressing the underlying problem is unhelpful. What are needed now are constructive ideas for effective but palatable measures for the road as a whole.

Andrew Young

37 Chapel Meadow

Buckland Monachorum