Sir – The drivers of Oxford are continually, and I really mean continually, bombarded with totally unnecessary roadworks to ‘improve’ their driving experience in the city and around the ring road.

Put lights on a roundabout and you instantly change it to a crossroads, with the inherent interruption to the natural traffic flow – there is then, no need for the roundabout.

I saw this happen on the A34 roundabout that drops down from the Western bypass to Botley; I complained at the time about the £600,000 waste of taxpayers’ money when it was being changed over to traffic lights. The roundabout functioned extremely well without traffic lights for 24 hours a day, without any interruption to its flow. For four hours a day, drivers had to stop-start to get to work without traffic lights. Yes, that was an absolute pain, but, what happens now? Exactly as I predicted: the traffic flow is interrupted artificially all day; the slip roads off the A34 are continually filled up with traffic that then has to try to get on to and round the roundabout before the next set of traffic lights on the roundabout change.

Look at what happened at Frideswide Square when the two sets of traffic lights were removed – the traffic flowed. This traffic light removal at Frideswide Square totally confirmed that traffic lights do not improve traffic flow.

The 16 months of roadworks at the Wolvercote roundabout are totally unnecessary. Build a bypass that takes all the London traffic that comes from the north away from the edge of Oxford.

You, the highway engineers, are going to kill the commercial heart of Oxford. It takes me 15 minutes to get to Witney – the car parking is free, the shops are easily accessible.

Guess where I will go for my shopping from now on?

Peter Sissons
Cumnor