No lights relief after £4m

Congratulations to West Midland's traffic department for their success in winning the country's 'most outstanding worsening' award after spending £4million of our money on the alterations to junction 7 of the M6 and Walsall Road's notorious Great Barr Scott Arms junction.

I wonder is it worse than before simply because of political correctness overcoming common sense, or basic incompetence, or (dark thought here) a deliberate and successful attempt to create more congestion as a way to force us long-suffering motorists onto public transport?

Actually, the major problem at the motorway junction itself dates back 30 or so years to the original cret-inous design which forces ALL the traffic from THREE of the four entrance/exit ramps from the M6/M5 to pass through one single bottleneck on the gyratory island.

The award-winning planners have erected a new set of traffic lights right at the exit from this bottleneck (controlling a bus lane, don't ask) which as far as I can see is on a timer, and ignores the presence or absence of buses.

Twenty yards further on is a new traffic light-controlled pedestrian crossing, and a couple of hundred yards further down, yet another set of lights. Three new congestion-causing light sets before you even reach the Scott Arms. The actual Scott Arms set of traffic light intervals were remarkably well-timed when first switched on, but appear to have been tinkered with since, such that traffic throughput seems markedly less than it initially was.

Put them back as designed by the installing engineers, they knew best.

D.T.Hall, Boscobel Road, Great Barr, Birmingham.