Sir – It is now clear that Welwyn Hatfield Council has decided that the north end of the town around Knightsfield is not satisfactorily polluted and that it must use speed humps to double the rate of carbon dioxide emissions as local residents are breathi

Sir - It is now clear that Welwyn Hatfield Council has decided that the north end of the town around Knightsfield is not satisfactorily polluted and that it must use speed humps to double the rate of carbon dioxide emissions as local residents are breathing too easily.

Our council has decided that this can be achieved by inserting speed humps throughout the length of the road at huge cost and massive inconvenience.

Perhaps our council is not aware of recent research by the Automobile Association and the Transport Research Laboratory which has clearly demonstrated that a small family car travelling at a constant 30mph will achieve 58.15 miles per gallon, and deliver only 30.85 miles per gallon when going over humps. The report stated that humps are a crude, uncomfortable and noisy way of slowing traffic, which is also environmentally damaging because they force drivers to brake and accelerate repeatedly. Can you imagine the number of such changes during the length of Knightsfield?

The blue haze resulting from such journeys will double pollution and halve the miles per gallon. What an achievement!

Then there is the sheer cost of the road works. The same sources estimates that the cost of 50 standard humps would be crippling. A far cheaper, cleaner and more effective method of speed control would be achieved by a few average-speed cameras along the length of the road without all the civil engineering and inconvenience to local residents.

Why is it so impossible for our council to consider alternatives before embarking upon measures, which demonstrate no more than political correctness?

Michael Clarke, Monks Rise, WGC.