On a recent Saturday, a team from the Response2route group petitioned outside Green Park.

We were seeking signatures to persuade the council that spending over £16m of our hard-earned council tax on barely one mile of old railway track and a bridge across the river into the Western Riverside project was not the wisest or most effective option to ease congestion in our historic city streets.

While we appreciate that there are bound to be dissenters from our view we were very heartened by the number of people who took the trouble to stop, listen and look at the conservation map which clearly shows the destruction that would be caused by such a move.

We are not just NIMBYs or 'just say no' people. We are environmentalists with a social conscience who can clearly see that there IS an alternative to flagrant desecration of a wildlife haven/ green lung for residents.

Most of the public with whom we spoke were unaware that Mammon was lurking in the Western Riverside development in the guise of the Government and First who say that unless this bus route goes through they will not be giving Bath the promised monies for transport.

Instead of all this, why not save valuable resources, both natural and financial, by using the present infrastructure of the Upper and Lower Bristol Roads and the Windsor Bridge by having a loop system thereon? Only one designated bus lane need be on these routes, solving the problem of narrow roads and cars parked.

We cannot have a ring road as such – Bath's hilly topography precludes that – but a loop system, one way in, another out, would be the nearest thing in desperately constrained circumstances.

If only the main body of the cabinet actually lived in Bath they might understand that the quality of life of those who do live here now does not have to be sacrificed just to get funds for future development.

We would like to thank everyone who signed and would urge those who needed more time to consider, or who were not entirely clear or convinced to visit the Spatial Strategy website and the Guildhall on November 6, 7 and 8 where an exhibition will be set up by the council for those people of Bath not directly affected to draw their own informed conclusions.

PATRICIA SPENCER-BARCLAY Response2route, Bath

I am totally bemused by the lack of imagination by the local councillors of Bath re the Bus Rapid Transit plan (BRT).

Have any of them thought of a river taxi – a river ferry similar to the one in Bristol Docks, that would run regularly from Newbridge to the city centre, and Lambridge to the centre? The other obvious thought is a railway station at Lambridge, similar to Oldfield Park.

There ARE alternatives to the BRT!

JACKY SHAVE Victoria Road Trowbridge

Is it me or are there suddenly hundreds of advertisements for the Bath Transportation Package popping up just about everywhere?

This desperate 'spin' must be costing a fortune.

The advert reads : 'Cross about congestion? Unless we tackle it, is going to get much worse'.

This is pure hype.

Bath will not come grinding to a halt without the provision of a Bus Rapid Transit system. The future of our city does not rest on shaving just two minutes off a journey.

A BRT is not going to solve Bath's transport problems in the long term; in fact, if anything, it will add to them.

Let's not forget that park-and-rides are basically decentralised car parks that encourage people to drive rather than use public transport. The prices of park-and-rides compete with public transport prices attracting people to jump in their car, rather than catch a regular bus.

These rural car parks are also outdated and short-sighted. They basically just move traffic from one place to another without addressing the real problem, which is not just city centre emissions, but emissions in general.

In addition to this, the BRT buses will cause more congestion. There will be several new sets of traffic lights causing localised traffic jams.

There won't be a tunnel or a bridge for the diesel, bendy buses to get across the already notoriously congested Windsor Bridge Road, just more traffic lights.

There won't be a segregated route to bypass the busy London Road, just an on-road bus lane.

The money which will be spent on the segregated route to the west of the city will be money spent in the wrong place.

This highly-destructive route will bypass the two least congested main roads into Bath, before adjoining existing roads where the real traffic is. People using the BRT will cross the river twice to reach the same side as where they began!

The people of Bath are being let down by this council's lack of vision. This scheme is not forward thinking. It does not consider traffic as a whole and will clog up the outskirts of Bath.

I think the council's advert should read : 'Cross about congestion? If B&NES tries to tackle it, it is going to get much worst'!

JO McCARRON Rudmore Park, Bath

B&NES, quite rightly, has a fine record on recycling yet now we're to have the mind-boggling lapse of the catastrophic destruction of the green corridor mile, the total annihilation of the hugely important water meadows at Bathampton and more green land taken from the very narrow valley flat at Newbridge near The Boathouse.

It can only be presumed some councillors weren't around at the time of the Buchanan fiasco and don't know the brouhaha his plans caused. To those unfamiliar with Buchanan's bold and dramatic plan, his controversial solution was to build a tunnel under the city.

The tunnel would have come out somewhere in the region of Charlotte Street, the through traffic then taken by a bridge across the river into the old marshalling yards of the Midland Railway and dramatically swept west, along what was to be the new stretch of the A4, this following the course of the old railway until it came out onto the dual carriageway at Newton.

There were also similar plans to sweep the Lower Bristol Road traffic into the Green Park concourse and channel this west. If these plans had come into effect there wouldn't of course now be a Green Park Station or Sainsbury's.

The new 'Heath Robinson' plan does nothing at all to address the real problem. It has, unfortunately, everything to do with the justification of the Western Riverside – and not much else.

PETER BURNS Avon Park Lower Weston, Bath

I would like to comment on Cllr Andrew Furse's letter in The Bath Chronicle regarding his walk along 'the proposed BRT route from Brassmill Lane to Ashley Avenue' and the noticeable absence of any B&NES cabinet members.

I wrote a letter to each member of the said cabinet; ten days later, I still have had no reply(s).

Are the Conservatives ignorant, or do not care for the people they are supposed to represent and who pays them for the privilege. They are doing themselves no favours!

J ASH Brassmill Lane, Bath