It has to be said that insofar as the Gateway into Watford plans for the second phase do sound stylish, they’re also just like window-dressing.

Whilst new paving slabs and trees are great, we certainly need more trees. Everywhere. But the elephant in the room is surely Watford’s inexorable traffic.

How will that be sorted?

The new traffic light scheme being trialled is great. Hopefully the penny will eventually start to drop that sitting behind the wheel fuming away in yawning queues gets you nowhere. Literally.

The pedestrian lights around Watford need looking at: if the lights haven’t been pressed recently, there is no justifiable reason why they should take like five minutes to activate. All by which time the pedestrian will have given up waiting, so when they will eventually go red, it will be to enable the free flow of nothing more than thin air. Watford badly needs a bypass. Unfortunately, the concept of bypasses came along too late.

The ring road is not a bypass.

In the very least, plans should be afoot to upgrade the hospital link road to form a West Watford bypass.

Elsewhere, park and ride schemes have proved an effective means to keep cars out of town centres. However as there is nowhere to park in Watford, it maybe its a case of ‘park in the drive’ and get a (bus) ride - or walk.

Then there’s the bus schedules that maybe could be revised so that it isn’t the case that for ages there are none, then three arrive at once! I’m thinking 724 and 321, the two main trunk services that thunder up and down the St Albans Road.

There needs to be a thorough and wide-ranging review in a number of areas if the council are serious about making things better.

Dave Degen

Whippendell Road, Watford