Sir, – The end of the article on page two of last week's D&S about Colin Telfer, his petition and the railway crossings in Northallerton is slightly misleading. The purpose of the North Northallerton Development Area Link Road is to provide access to the development and only mitigate the negative traffic impact on the rest of Northallerton caused by the additional traffic generated by the development itself. This is the situation no matter what Hambleton district councillors want to believe and no matter how many times they state that the NNDA link road will solve the traffic problems at the railway crossings.

Hambleton District Council and their government funded consultants took more than one go to get the road to work and now have a design and traffic model that shows that the development with the road is now traffic neutral. I do hope no one from HDC has told the government that the link road will solve traffic problems in Northallerton because that would be untrue. The £6 million grant HDC has secured is to enable the development to proceed because it is a non-starter without the link road. As a guess I would now think that the additional

biomass rail freight to Drax Power Station probably means that the link road needs to be in

place before a single house is completed.

This link road may provide an alternative route into Northallerton but will not solve the traffic problems in Northallerton caused by the rail crossings in any way whatsoever. If you do not believe me ask Transport & Development at North Yorkshire County Council.

If Colin Telfer and petitioners are fobbed off with the NNDA link road myth he will be disappointed when it is built and does not solve the traffic problem. Choosing to sit in a traffic queue on Stokesley and Brompton Roads would only provide a change of scenery for him and the other petitioners. The solutions that will work are those Colin Telfer proposes himself in the article, namely lowering the track and/or building bridges for vehicles.

ALAN MCKEE

Northallerton Road, Brompton.