FOLLOWING on from Norman Wanstall’s letter, your readers may be interested to note some of the implications of the Tesco planning application transport assessment.

Published data shows that the population of Tenbury has increased by 80 per cent in the past 20 years. Sur rounding parishes on the A456 have shown similar increases. Yet the planning application is based on an assumption of total 6.6 per cent growth in base traffic volumes over 12 years.

Even based on this totally unrealistic assumption, the Teme Street Tesco junction is forecast to accommodate in 2016 a total of 1,070 vehicles per hour (18 per minute) on a weekday afternoon.

This includes 272 turning in and out of the Tesco access road (four per minute) mingling with pedestrians trying to walk between the bridge and the town centre and competing for 80-90 non-staff car park spaces that would be provided.

When the inevitable accidents occur, the emergency vehicles would be unable to cross the bridge because in the 10 minutes it would take for them to arrive, another 94 vehicles would have arrived in Teme Street from the A456 and another 74 from the Market Street direction.

Against this the proposed A456 junction alteration to mitigate the increased traffic flows would provide additional stacking space for an extra three cars and the assessment ends with: “It is therefore concluded that the proposed Tesco store will present no material highway capacity or safety implications for existing road users”.

So that’s all right then.

RICHARD TATLOW,

Newnham Bridge, Tenbury Wells.