IT IS not often I agree with Conservative MPs and fellow members pictured on this week’s edition of the Penarth Times and I often suspect their motives, but the long-suffering residents of Dinas Powys urgently need this by-pass and the Vale councillor’s response is pitiful.

To suggest that tackling the problem by constructing a few hopeless bus lanes and encouraging people to walk or cycle to Cardiff is so lame as it beggars belief.

And the bottleneck argument could be used for all by-passes and motorways constructed in this country for the last 60 years.

The council sits in its chambers and ignores the 50,000 population of Barry of which a good percentage work or seek pleasure in the capital.

They are also oblivious to the fact that Barry has a number of industrial estates where quite a few companies use heavy goods vehicles for their business, all of which end up piling through Dinas Powys at all hours and at dangerous speeds when traffic permits.

If there was a will the Vale could introduce immediately a weight limit for trucks allowed through Dinas Powys which could take out a lot of the heavier vehicles, but I suspect they would not want to upset their cosy rental agreements.

Nobody likes the prospect of more countryside being lost to roads but we have to live in the present and for better or worse the Barry population is growing in size, more vehicles are being used, and it is often dangerous to cycle or walk.

Mark Watkins

Address supplied