Editor's comment:

FEW issues in recent months have provoked as many letters to these pages as the trial closure to cars of Highwood Road in Patchway. People have struggled to see the logic, warned about the dangers, the congestion it would cause elsewhere and generally denounced it as a scheme completely lacking in common sense.

Now Father Eugene Campbell has joined the public debate.

He is doing what a good parish priest should do, recognising an issue that is concerning his parishioners and encouraging them to make their voices heard.

He has noticed what many people predicted. That shutting the road has led to motorists using other streets as rat runs.

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Father Campbell particularly highlights his concerns about the extra traffic which is now using Coniston Road. As he points out, this puts elderly people and children at a greater risk.

People who live in Patchway warned this would happen and yet South Gloucestershire council pressed ahead with the closure.

It may be only an 18-month experiment but that is no reason why it has to continue if it is causing so many problems.

The council needs to listen to local people and reopen Highwood Road to all traffic.