I write to voice my continuing concern about the ongoing issue of congestion on the Salisbury Road as it comes into Marlborough.

The failure of the Highways Department and the planners to come up with a longer-term proposal to deal with the now regular congestion on this road is unacceptable.

The fact that this planned development is also considering narrowing the one wider part of the road, presently used to allow larger vehicles to travel in both directions, is most unsatisfactory.

This section of the road is already a bottleneck, ending with a double mini roundabout at the A4/A346/George Lane junction.

At present, the smallest of hold- ups at this point can cause a back- up of traffic from the south, often leading back as far as Cadley and sometimes as far as Leigh Hill. The development of the business park has increased the traffic accessing this hot spot with dire consequences for regular road users. This road is my main access to Marlborough. If the road is congested, a journey which should take 15 minutes can take 45.

There is no way of knowing in advance if there will be unacceptable congestion or not and no alternative route once congestion builds up. The unpredictability of my journey means that I increasingly access shops and other services in Hungerford, Andover or Tidworth.

This is not good for the local economy. Scheduling business meetings is problematic as valuable working time is lost by having to leave additional time for my journey and public transport provision is very sparse on this route.

The planning committee together with Wiltshire Highways should step back and take a longer-term look at this complicated junction, especially if the field opposite the business park is going to be developed for housing. If this goes ahead with no sensible improvement for the traffic, a bad situation will reach crisis point.

The final section of the road, going down to the London Road, is always going to be an issue, so perhaps the Highways Department should seriously consider an east- west road connecting the A346 with the Pewsey road. This would remove some of the westerly traffic from the High Street and George Lane. If this is not dealt with before the housing development is given planning permission, access to Marlborough from the south will become virtually impossible.

Consideration, particularly in relation to the development of the depot site, should be given to the dismantling of the stone structure from the old railway bridge and levelling out of the embankment which could open out part of the bottleneck.

Continuing short term solutions with commercial gain in mind will serve this community badly.

Alexandra Jackson Kay Burbage