AFTER all these years it seems that our councillors, have woken up to the fact that allowing even more traffic on the already over-stretched Bath Road in Stroud might prove to be a problem.

A problem, that is putting it mildly as all motorists, cyclists and pedestrians who regularly use the road already know all too well, it is part of the A46 – one of the busiest traffic arteries running through the entire county.

The recent decision to defer whether Aldi can develop a large store on part of the Bath Road Trading Estate is surely a step in the right direction, as any more traffic on the upper and lower reaches of the Bath Road will have many implications.

Already buses, coaches, lorries and tankers regularly have to mount the pavements on the stretch from the Clothiers Arms to the Golden Fleece traffic lights to avoid one another, and those same pavements are used on a daily basis by primary school children along with many others.

Recently there have also been occasions when the emergency services - ambulances and fire engines on call - have been severely held up in the traffic chaos at the Golden Fleece traffic lights.

Any more cars, lorries, vans etc in this vicinity will almost certainly lead to the potential for a serious accident, or something worse still.

Add to that the effect the extra traffic would obviously have on villages on either side of the valley such as Woodchester, Selsley, Amberley and Rodborough, as those parishes would be used as daily rat-runs to avoid the hold-ups.

Perhaps it would be pertinent for residents in those areas to enquire where their local councillors stand on the issue.

The utterly bizarre suggestion that three supermarkets - Sainsburys, the re-jigged Daniels Trading Estate application and the Bath Road Trading Estate - could all operate within a few hundred yards is as ludicrous as it sounds.

Even more so when footfall and market share in many stores is heading south on a nationwide basis.

And then there is the question over whether Stroud really needs another supermarket, in any case.

Andrew King

Stroud