ANYONE who has been into Ledbury these past weekends and even during the week cannot help but notice the increase in the amount of traffic and the consequential gridlock. This can, of course, be put down to an overall increase in vehicles in general terms; the laying of a new gas pipe along parts of the Homend does not improve matters as Knapp Lane - the local rat run - is closed off.

But the main culprit of this gridlock is the traffic lights at Top Cross. How an important junction, where four main roads meet, can be controlled by a system that only works on threeways and a filter that is only working part time is incomprehensible.

These traffic lights were only changed to this system after Ledbury Town Council complained repeatedly to Herefordshire Council, which came up with this as an answer. It was, I believe, a temporary measure to last some six months. Well, I have to inform Herefordshire Council that after some eight months, it doesn't work at all and at a time when Ledbury is entering its busy tourist season the last thing it needs is traffic gridlock.

In a recent Ledbury Reporter, Coun Barry Ashton stated that, since its split with Worcester-shire, expenditure on roads in Herefordshire had increased fourfold.

Well, I for one would like to see my small contribution go toward making a marked traffic management improvement in Ledbury, especially at Top Cross.

I am in no doubt Coun Ashton or one of his colleagues will reply to this letter is political terms, with long, lofty generalisations but conspicuously short on effective measures to deal with the situation.

CHARLES STEVEN

WHICKHAM, Deer Park, Ledbury.