YOUR front page report (February 14) that a relief road is being planned by Devon County Council indicates the lack of common-sense with these organisations.
Did we not have a bypass not long ago? The traffic problems in Okehampton are caused by the inefficient traffic lights and recent narrowing of lanes.
The recent 'enhancements' included strangling the traffic flow by reducing West Street and effectively Fore Street to one lane only. This naturally means that only half the numbers of cars can pass a green light, a serious reduction which obviously increases delays.
The other problem is that the traffic lights only allow one direction, of the four, to move at any one time. It is a matter of simple arithmetic to work out that, in any one average hour, each road has only 15 minutes to move. However, it is actually less than this because of starting and stopping and the sequencing of the lights, probably resulting in just ten to 12 minutes in an hour for traffic to flow. Why is anyone surprised this creates long queues?
The lights could easily and cheaply be changed to allow Fore Street and West Street to flow together and some white lines could assist with the minor problem of the staggered exit roads.
It would be more expensive, but very much less than a relief road and still well worth the cost, to reverse some of the damage done by the 'enhancements' and open up reasonable traffic flow.
This does not mean increased speeds, just normal sensible traffic movement.
All this is too much common-sense and will not, as with many other similar examples, be listened to by Devon County Council who claim they want our views but actually never take any notice.
David Bagshall
Grindhill
Okehampton