RECENT occurrences have persuaded me to write to Highways in Cheshire East.

It was outsourced to Ringway Jacobs a year or so ago. This is a completely independent company with a contract to provide road maintenance.

Do they give sufficient warning of impending road closures?

What is the statutory period and how do they communicate them?

Regarding setting up diversionary routes and removing them. What about assembling the signs a day in advance so motorists notice them on their way home?

My criticism is how they interpret their planning role.

They are consulted on any major development as to whether it will significantly affect road traffic.

My understanding is that their interpretation of ‘significantly’ is very different from the average motorist’s.

Unless the change is so huge that it does not take an expert to realise that it is unsustainable, Highways will state that it has no objection to the proposal.

If they took a more realistic stance regarding traffic congestion, they would provide a public service by persuading developers to site developments where the infrastructure can more easily cope and to consider where its inhabitants are going to work, play and be educated.

Dr Peter Hirst Middlewich