Wendy Balme, of Newton Abbot writes: On the morning of Saturday, March 25, my husband and I parked our car in Union Street in order to visit the bank and one shop, which took us between five and 10 minutes. We returned to the car and joined the queue of cars into Courtenay Street. It then took us at least 20 minutes to travel from the end of Union Street to the traffic lights at the junction of Sherborne Road, Halcyon Road and Kingsteignton Road. Traffic was queued along Queen Street and on Courtenay Street, trying to turn into Sherborne Road. On Courtenay Street we did not move for at least five minutes because cars were queueing all the way down the ramp from the multi-storey car park and all along Sherborne Road to the traffic lights and were not letting in anyone from Sherborne Road. One can only imagine the unnecessary pollution caused by all these vehicles with their engine running for all this time in a busy street. As regular users of this route will know, the island by the entrance to the car park on Sherborne Road severely restricts traffic from getting into the appropriate lane for right or left turn until you are nearly at the lights. Perhaps the person who came up with the bright idea of building this island could spend three or four hours on a Saturday morning sitting by the lights – preferably in pouring rain or hot sun – watching the traffic gridlock that this island causes.
