CAN we all agree that roads filled with traffic are terrible.

The time wasted by frustrated motorists, the pollution, the noise, not to mention the appalling loss of lives / injuries (eg recent M5 deaths).

Our time sitting behind the wheel fuels obesity as our car empties our wallet.

With substantially more housing coming to Stroud it adds up to be a modern day curse.

Is this just inevitable?

The price we pay for 21st century living?

We can only hope not.

But where is the solution to be found?

Build more roads? (Thankfully not an option around Stroud).

The solution has to come from all of us - recognising the choices we make about where we live and work, how we travel and the values we want as a community.

‘Free’ parking (in other words parking paid by taxation to subsidise motorists) is retrograde.

Out of town developments are convenient only when enabled by cars.

Each of us has a choice - to change our lives, to walk our children to school, to cycle to town, to take trains / buses, to stop our lives being built around cars.

It’s up to us.

Andrew Blee

Thrupp