LETTER: New and better bypass needed

The Chichester A27 traffic problem can only be solved by a new, better bypass.

Tinkering with the existing A27 around the

city is not going to solve a traffic congestion problem that has existed for several decades and it’s getting worse.

When my employer relocated to Chichester in 1966, it looked at plans for the area and way back then there was a plan for a Honiton to Dover Trunk Road, but West Sussex has done virtually nothing to achieve this.

Leaving Chichester travelling west you can pass through the whole of Hampshire, and beyond, on the M27 without encountering a single roundabout or traffic light! Hampshire did its job well.

In total contrast, the A27 through Chichester and West Sussex is a giant bottleneck.

There are so many many roundabouts and then beyond Chichester to the East traffic lights galore. Almost every morning there is a three-mile traffic queue for vehicles approaching Chichester from the west.

On the A27 around Chichester there is much traffic congestion with daily traffic jams causing much delay and air pollution.

For traffic trying to cross the A27 there is there is just one safe crossing point, at the Oving/Shopwhyke roads traffic lights.

Unbelievably, there have been proposals to remove these lights and as a result more traffic will be diverted onto an already overloaded roundabout where the Bognor Road (A259) meets the A27. Sheer madness !

There has been much construction around Chichester and there is at present an enormous project adjacent to the Shopwhyke Road to the east of the A27.

It seems that this and other house building has been allowed with no consideration for the impact of so much more traffic on the local roads

and A27. Through traffic on the A27 and access thereto affects all the surrounding areas particularly those to the south. Of course, during the summer holiday period, a very bad situation gets far worse. Unfortunately, no one in the local and West Sussex authorities seems to care.

If they cannot or are unwilling to see a solution then Highways England or some other authority impose a solution.

Derek Sweetsur

Nelson Road

Bognor Regis