Sir, – I have read the Farnham Sustainable Town Initiative Action Plan. It is 33 pages of beautifully printed text with eye-catching coloured insertions and endless lists of bullet points. It uses words loved by consultants like holistic, inclusive, spatial, sustainable and vision. It is clearly written by outsiders. I say this because it begins with a series of ideals of which the first is "to resolve the issues of through traffic in the town centre". We all know that already, but there is nothing in the report to suggest that the consultants had any understanding of the peculiar difficulty of achieving that ideal in Farnham. If they had glanced at an ordnance survey map they might have noticed the clear red line of the A287 passing straight through the centre of the town. I say this because they resurrect the completely potty idea of reducing the A287 in Downing Street to a single lane and compound this by proposing the equally potty idea of reducing The Borough to one lane. These are two very busy roads with traffic flows in excess of 1,000 vehicles an hour during peak periods, but until practical proposals are found for diverting this traffic the idea of reducing these roads to one lane would lead to gridlock on such a massive scale that it would be the death of Farnham as a shopping centre and as a significant provider of employment. The consultants feebly suggest that the outcome of reducing these roads to a single lane is a "possible decision by some drivers to seek alternative routes". I have lived in Farnham for more than 20 years and whenever I discuss traffic the almost invariable comment I hear is why on earth has Farnham never fought for a western-by-pass to divert the north-south traffic that bedevils the town centre. The report is flawed in two other respects. Traffic flows into and out of Farnham are analysed from the directions of West Street, Castle Street and East Street, but no matching analysis is provided for traffic flows into and out of Farnham from South Street or Longbridge, the two sources of the north- south traffic which causes all the problems. Secondly, information is provided only about the capacities of the Hart, Wagon Yard and Dogflud car parks. For these we are introduced to the ludicrous jargon of "park and stride" – (does this mean walking more quickly than we currently do?) – but no similar information of capacity is provided for the Central Car Park which the report speculates should eventually be closed. This seems to me to be another absurd suggestion because it is offered without any alternative. This car park is as convenient as any I have ever seen for town centre shopping and it has the particular advantage for those living to the south that it can be used without the need to add extra traffic round the whole of the central one-way system. This report must have cost tens of thousands of pounds of our money as taxpayers. I doubt that it tells us much that we did not already know, it could not be implemented for many years and it will almost certainly be overtaken by events in East Street. Good news for consultants, though.

John Littlewood, Mavins Court, Greenhill Road, Farnham