ORGANISATIONS such as Claines Action Group have never stopped muttering that plans are afoot to extend Worcester's orbital road between St John's and the northern suburbs.

Assuming they are right, I wonder if a new stretch of road would be single or dual carriageway?

Looking at the crowded southern link road running past St Peter the Great it seems incredible the planners did not think a dual carriageway was necessary.

Surely the road was obsolete before any asphalt was ever dumped on the fields south of the Faithful City?

For much of the time traffic crawls along, almost nose-to-tail.

Was this foreseen when the planners at County Hall were busy poring over their maps? Apparently not.

"The main cause of congestion is the junctions," said Jeff Romanis, the county council's head of highways.

"It isn't whether the road is single or dual carriageway."

But he admitted few people realised how demand for the road would soar in the mid-to-late 1990s.

"Traffic forecasts about 10 years ago said it would be adequate," said Mr Romanis.

"What seemed to happen was that people who were put off travelling through the city centre started to use the new road. The traffic forecasts didn't pick that up."

Widening the road would cost a vast amount of money and the council's options would be very limited where the highway crosses the river between the southern outskirts and Kempsey, he added.

So drivers can look forward to delays for years to come.

The lessons would seem to be not to put too much faith in transport surveys and to bear in mind that new roads generate traffic, rather than relieve the problem of congestion.

As for who would pay for a new road in the absence of any Government grant, it's not difficult to think of candidates.

When the ring-road alongside Warndon Villages was constructed the consortium of developers frantically building in the east stumped up the funds.

No doubt developers keen to build alongside the Worcester city-Malvern Hills boundary would oblige, should the green light be given for an extension to the western bypass.