IT’S hard not to have some sympathy for the people of Marlborough trying to stop heavy lorries coming through the town. 
The figures do suggest that the number has fallen, although it’s clear that the size of the vehicles has increased.
The question needs to be asked, however, why, when the Andover to Cheltenham rail line closed the opportunity was not taken to build a road along the course of the line, this providing a north-south bypass.
Modern development along the old rail line means that this option is no longer really viable. But in any case this is only part of the problem. 
The entire length of the A346 through the Collingbournes is completely unsuited to heavy traffic, as are many other stretches of Wiltshire’s largely Victorian road network, many stretches of which have remained unimproved since the 1950s.
Re-routing trucks on to the A34 would offer a partial solution but the reality is that if we want to find our supermarket shelves constantly stocked, and our petrol stations always open, we have to accept that heavy trucks are a fact of life.
In the future perhaps more localised distribution networks may become viable, based around 
railheads at strategic locations but that sort of thing will not come cheap. As ever, the future is difficult to predict.
PAUL PUTNAM
The Old Builders Wharf
Honeystreet