SIR,

As you will be aware from the recent correspondence, there is real concern about the seemingly non-sensical decision to allow the developers of Dixton Clinic to have access via the Burgage, onto the busy Old Dixton Road, and round the endlessly gridlocked St James Square, rather than out onto the adjacent Dixton Road, one of the main roads out of Monmouth.

As a family with three children under the age of three trying to live on Old Dixton Road, we already have a real issue with the safety of our children on this busy thoroughfare, and unloading them from the car is very risky.

The road has been deliberately narrowed in the last few years, to encourage traffic calming, and yet now Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) has suddenly done a volte face and agreed to increase traffic flow.

However, our key concern, based on personal experience, is the difficulty of access for the emergency vehicles to this area.

Exactly a year ago one of our twin babies, Samuel, stopped breathing at home. Fortunately the paramedic was able to reach us just in time (Samuel had stopped breathing for four minutes).

Luckily Samuel decided to time this unwelcome event for mid-morning, as we reflected at the time that it simply would not have been the same outcome if the paramedic had needed to reach us during one of the peak traffic times.

We simply cannot therefore comprehend why anyone from MCC's planning department – whom one likes to assume knows Monmouth and the particular grid lock in this area – would think that approving more traffic down this single carriage, heavily congested cul-de-sac, already shared with 1,600 children at the Comprehensive (as well as children from the other schools including the primary schools visiting the leisure centre and the library) is appropriate or wise.

Surely the very same logic which led to a large number of vehicles en route for the school being filtered straight in from Dixton Road, rather than clogging up the top end of town, still applies.

It is clearly a decision that is at best poorly judged, and should be urgently reviewed.

Sophie Graefe

(Monmouth)