It will be a very sad day if the so-called Weymouth Relief Road gets the go-ahead. I say this as someone who lives close to the Dorchester Road and travels on it regularly by car and bus. I am not one of the out-of-towners that our MP and others keep slating.

Apart from the fact that it will offer relief only to Upwey and Broadwey and not at all to Weymouth, the proposed road will blight many hundreds of properties in Littlemoor, which will be affected by the noise and pollution of fast vehicles going through their midst.

In addition, the constant background of traffic noise will ruin the tranquillity of the beautiful Lorton Valley, which many of us like to walk in regularly for peace and quiet. Two Mile Copse, next door, which will be equally badly affected by the noise, is the last remaining piece of proper woodland anywhere in the Weymouth area. We should be protecting these valuable assets at all costs.

The most important reason, though, why the road should not be built, is that it is now beyond doubt that our overuse of fossil fuels is rapidly causing dramatic changes in the climate.

We are entering a completely new era which, frankly, frightens me. We should be starting to reduce our energy use, and that includes use of cars.

The relief road, like all other new roads built in the past, will inevitably encourage the use of more cars. We should be doing exactly the opposite and doing everything we can to reduce the number of private cars on the road (and, incidentally, removing the congestion as well).

The single most important factor that causes delays in peak hours is the large number of cars that have only one person in them. Only a small number of these drivers need their cars for use at work, and most journeys could easily be shared.

Even better, the three big public service employers in Dorchester that are the cause of most of the traffic during peak hours, could easily supply buses to pick up their workers at various points in Weymouth.

Most of the time I find the Dorchester Road to be perfectly adequate. The occasional really bad jams caused by roadworks could be largely eliminated if the narrower sections of the road were dug up only at night, something that would cost a tiny fraction of the proposed cost of the new road.

The occasional high vehicle getting stuck under the railway bridge could be avoided by lowering the road at that point (as has been done in other parts of the country). The summer jams of holidaymakers coming into Weymouth on Saturday mornings could be alleviated by better programming of the Littlemoor lights.

It is highly probable that government will impose petrol (carbon) rationing within the next 10 years as part of a worldwide agreement to reduce fossil fuel use. In that case there will automatically be a considerable reduction in traffic and the large amount of money spent on the road will be a complete waste.

We should be starting to spend this money instead on the public transport infrastructure that is going to be vital to make it possible to get around Dorset and the rest of the country.

The present Dorchester Road would be perfectly adequate for the reduced number of vehicles likely to be needing to use it in the future.

Derek Fawell, Alexandra Road, Weymouth.