SOME time ago, I was really pleased to see that at the end of Bradburns Lane, where it joins Chester Road opposite the vets in Hartford.

It was decided to put in a filter lane at the traffic lights, to allow traffic wishing to turn left towards Greenbank and Castle to be able to do so without joining the already long queues which form at these lights.

This worked really well and reduced queuing at that end of Bradburns Lane for everybody.

Then very slowly, the queues began to get even longer than before at certain times of the day. What could possibly be causing this to happen? The answer soon became very obvious, several people have decided that this filter lane is actually their own personal parking lane.

The effect of this selfish act is that now queuing traffic can now not make full use of the filter lane, leading to bigger queues than there used to be.

These people have effectively reduced the width of the filter lane, meaning that the traffic wanting to turn left cannot squeeze down the partially blocked filter lane, rendering it totally useless.

I have no idea how much it cost to build this filter lane, but, it has now just become a very expensive parking area for several vehicles.

Maybe the dreaded double yellow lines might be the only answer. I’m sure that the people who regularly park in the filter lane will protest that they have nowhere else to park.

My response to that would be, where did you park before this special parking lane was built causing massive inconvenience to everyone else who just wants to go about their day, or get home from work following a hard day?

Maybe the serial parkers could think how they would feel if their journey home every day was made twice as long because of inconsiderate drivers blocking the very lane that was supposed to ease the situation.

Andrew Taylor Hartford