I was sorry to read that Rick Jewell still pays road tax (‘Motorist win hands down’, Opinion, August 13), despite it being abolished in 1937.

Looking at some of his other understandings, it is worth highlighting that roads are public spaces, in London’s case making up 80 per cent of all available public space; although his implication is correct in that they have presently been conceded to motorists.

Where he is certainly wrong is that they are “ours”, ie the motorists’. Anyone who pays income tax, council tax, VAT, business rates or any of the other myriad UK taxes contributes to paying for our roads; and I would guess that is near enough everyone.

That a particular allocation (of funds and land) has been made to (motorised) roads rather than youth clubs, supporting the lives of older residents, schools, hospitals, improving our parks or providing free or subsidised public transport to all, is a Government and local authority policy decision. We are all users of such public goods and many would doubtless benefit from more resource.

Change is often difficult and accepting solutions to macro influences, such as climate change and air pollution deaths, will never be straightforward, nor will be the inclusion of the expected one million near term increase in London’s population with the, let’s say, 500,000 extra homes and parking spaces/road space, that implies. But that is the current challenge of political policy.

We also know that with leading car manufacturers pre-preparing their vehicles for car-clubs, the UK determined to be a world leader in driverless vehicles, and GM reportedly viewing that the combination of predictive big-data, location services and car sharing could see absolute car levels reduce in US cities by up to eighty per cent without loss of utility, that the future big money is also in a very different place to Mr Jewell.

K Brown

Old Park Road, Palmers Green