Apparently, three-quarters of the people who objected to the Weymouth relief road planning application (round 1) were from outside Dorset, and I hear that those in favour of the road are now crying foul!' Terry Landsbert (Road voters must be local', Echo, February 1) goes as far as to say that county councillors should recognise their constituent's needs' and vote for the road ASAP.

The thing he fails to mention is that the figures leaked to the Echo and described as accurate' by Dorset County Council show 342 Dorset-based people against the road, as opposed to 180 in favour. (Whether the 180 are all Dorset-based or not was not disclosed).

To my uneducated mind this raises a couple of points: Firstly, local people appear to be against the road by nearly 2 to 1. (I assume that Mr Landsbert is actually hoping that the council don't listen to their constituents after all and just listen to him instead!) The second point is more obtuse. Dorset County Council covers a population of 400,000 and Weymouth and Portland has a population of around 64,500, yet at most only 522 local people can make the effort to express an opinion. If this road is so vital, why aren't people bothered to do anything about it?

Why is there so much bellyaching in the Echo in favour of the road yet very few people actually get off their backsides and contact the people who matter?

If actions really do speak louder than words, it shows how unimportant this road scheme is to the vast majority of the local population.

Incidentally, why shouldn't people from outside the area express their opinions on the road? A lot of them could well be the holidaymakers Weymouth relies so much on. Perhaps we should try to keep them happy.

Jon Kitchin Cromwell Road Weymouth