I HAVE every sympathy for the people trapped in the Tesco car park for four hours, as I have been stuck in there for 40 minutes on a normal day.

I believe the cause was a problem with the traffic lights on the main road.

Why do we need those traffic lights in the first place?

A roundabout would have been the obvious choice.

Why hold up the main road traffic at a red light to allow one or two cars out of the side road when you could just go with the flow?

It doesn't make sense, any more than the traffic lights on the Harnham Gyratory and the other roundabouts make sense.

Any driver will tell you that the traffic flows better when the lights are broken.

When I asked the council why they had installed lights at the bridge on Milford Mill Road, they said that the main reason was to discourage drivers from using this route.

To achieve this the light sequence had been set to cause a longer delay than necessary in order to frustrate and annoy drivers. The immediate effect of this was queues stretching right back to the main road and angry drivers jumping the lights.

Surely traffic lights should only be installed where they will improve traffic flow, not to hinder it? The work was paid for by the new hotel, but if the council had consulted the people of Salisbury, I think we could have thought of better uses for the money.

Richard Tambling

Salisbury