I am responding to yet another extraordinary letter to your newspaper (‘Gates will not solve the problem’, Opinion, May 7). Briefly, Bernard King said that because he lives on a rat run, and many other people suffer a similar disadvantage, everyone should just put up with it; not least because the main roads are incapable of carrying traffic diverted from residential streets. That’s what my father called “equal misery for all”.

It’s not good enough that residential streets lose their identity as a living/social space, endure poor air quality with all its frightening implications for health, and kids lose their freedom and can neither ride a bike nor walk to school. No wonder we are becoming an unfit, overweight nation increasingly suffering from crippling illnesses like asthma.

Main roads could carry diverted traffic if huge numbers of driver-only cars travelling very short distances were to be replaced by journeys made on foot, on a bike, or using public transport. Why does he think the Government gave the Mayor of London £110million to encourage cycling via the Mini-Holland scheme if not to encourage people to leave their cars at home?

As a city we are choking ourselves with vehicle exhaust fumes, clogging up the main roads, becoming increasingly unfit and depriving our kids of their independence. Not a good record.

I don’t, by the way, advocate gates at the ends of streets. People deserve a pleasant living environment so, much better visually, is a constriction by widening the pavement or installing a central island, preferably with the planting of trees or shrubs. Such a solution would allow pedestrian and cyclist access but exclude cars and look good.

David Hughes

Palmers Green