Your article states that Maria Caulfield wants a dual carriageway road between Polegate and Lewes. The majority of people who voted in the Lewes constituency did not vote for a Conservative. They voted for parties who don’t want to concrete over the countryside. Simply dualling the A27 east of Lewes will solve neither unemployment nor traffic congestion. There will still be congestion at the Falmer junction, the Ashcombe roundabout near Kingston and the roundabout at Southerham near Lewes. What does Maria Caulfield and the Department of Transport propose for these bottlenecks?

Cutting out large swathes of our beautiful countryside and concreting it over will not of itself bring about economic success as claimed by the Department of Transport consultants. I believe dualling the road between Lewes and Polegate will simply encourage people to drive further to work. Eastbourne may lose out as people will continue to live there but commute to Brighton, Gatwick and beyond. Motorway building has been proven to add to the problems of traffic congestion, not solve it: – look at the M25! We need to use more intelligence to provide employment and create economic growth. Motorways just suck people from one location to the other. Eastbourne has already turned the corner in providing new employment; it could go further by developing innovative industries, targeting qualified students from the Eastbourne campus of the University of Brighton and the South Downs College. Why not follow the steps of Cambridge and other cities by developing IT and software centres of excellence where people can cycle or get the bus to work. We can be economically successful and improve the quality of life for everyone as well as saving our countryside.

I daresay the £75 million identified in the budget by Mr Osborne will eventually turn out to be very much more than that whilst at the same time the East Sussex County Council are cutting bus services in rural areas. The results? Yes we can drive at speed (theoretically) from Eastbourne to Brighton but the people in all of the villages in between who don’t have a car will be further isolated! Crazy logic!

Vic Ient

Member – CPRE Sussex