Link Road is an expensive plaster

WHILE I sympathise with the anti Link Road protestors I feel that it is a shame that they are emphasising the “anti road” aspect. I believe a more important point is that this is the wrong road in the wrong place!

By The Newsroom

Published 18th Jan 2013, 05:04 BST

Hastings needs improved links but much more important are the link to London via the A21, which in places is little more than a country lane, and greatly improved rail links.

Despoiling an environmentally important valley to divert traffic away from the Bexhill Road to a congested Baldslow junction with the A21 and onto the Ridge, with its hospital, schools and fire station seems to me to be a disastrous decision.

The main problem lies with the local topography and this is where the earlier proposal for a bypass (emerging at Guestling) failed. What is really needed is a road bypassing Hastings, Winchelsea and Rye but with good links to these towns. This would require long term strategic thinking.

The Link Road may line the pockets of a few developers but seems unlikely to provide many jobs while other links are so bad and is an expensive sticking plaster solution when a full scale operation is needed.

Lynn Jenkins

Austen Way

Guestling

Hastings London