Sir, - The circular issued by Osmotherley Parish Council this January to gauge the opinion of unspecified village residents to a proposed second bus-shelter in the village was flawed in at least four ways, but when I pointed this out to the clerk to the parish council, my letter was ignored.

In an e-mail to the clerk in January, I pointed out that this circular:

1. Did not require respondents to give any reason for their support or opposition to such a proposal. Shouldn't people be asked to explain why they endorse or oppose any plan?

2. Did not require respondents to indicate whether they are healthy and car-users. Clearly, fit people who own, or have access to, a car, have probably less incentive in supporting such a plan than someone who is elderly, relatively disabled, and who has no car at all.

3. Did not specify any possible locations for a second bus-shelter, leaving the way open for respondents to have all sorts of misgivings about possible sites for such a shelter.

4. Did not specify what type (or types) of bus-shelter might be considered. Even Ellerbeck has an appropriately-sized shelter. The number of times the Ellerbeck shelter is actually used, the number of users, and the fact that a special lay-by was created at some public expense were - apparently - unimportant issues to the council at that time.

Because this circular was so clumsily thought out, the council left the way wide open for the articulation of various points of view for which no reason or indeed further explanation was required from respondents.

More importantly, this survey neglected the importance of protecting elderly residents with severe mobility problems against inclement weather.

In a nutshell, this is a triumph for the anonymous and heartless "car set" in Osmotherley over those who have no access to a car.

The council has now shelved any plan to build a second bus-shelter in Osmotherley for two years before reviewing it once again, perhaps hoping that in the intervening time, the tiny minority of residents thus disadvantaged will have passed on, thereby relieving the council of making any substantive decision whatsoever.

The majority may have spoken, but who says the majority is always right? A democratically-reached decision? Highly debateable in this case. A humane decision? Emphatically not.

STUART ROBINSON

Osmotherley.

School links

Sir, - Your report of the opening of a new school in Middleton Tyas (D&S, May 28) was interesting.

It was the third purpose built school for the village. The first was a school built by the vicar, the Rev James Stevenson Blackwood in 1862, the second was an infant school built in 1895 by the Eyre family - now converted to a private house.

The Rev Blackwood and his wife, Lady Alicia Blackwood, were great friends of Florence Nightingale and it was she who invited them to work among the troops in the Crimean War. Lady Blackwood worked in nursing and he as a padre.

Following this period Mr Blackwood was given the living of the parish of Middleton Tyas and they lived in the Rookery. The Blackwoods had previously given a home to two Swedish orphans, Emma and Ebba Almroth, and they accompanied the Blackwoods to the Crimea and later to Middleton Tyas.

One of the Swedish girls, Ebba, married one of the two curates in the village, he was Charles Wright. Charles and Ebba had three children, one of whom was Almroth Edward Wright born in 1861.

He became a very eminent pathologist and worked at St Mary's Hospital in London. He discovered a vaccine which prevented typhoid and an assistant on his staff was Alexander Fleming who, of course, discovered penicillin.

His work also brought about the Medical Research Council, After a lifetime of science, medicine and militaria, sometimes controversial, and being a pathologist of some distinction, he died in 1947.

Recently Dr Michael Dunhill, Emeritus Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, wrote a book, The Plato of Praed Street, the Life and Times of Almroth Wright.

When Dr Dunhill knew of the new school at Middleton Tyas he sent an inscribed copy of the book to the school, where it now rests. It is a reminder of the nineteenth century and of the first school.

ARABELLA KARDI

Middleton Tyas.

Upgrade our roads

Sir, - The Government is now considering transport spending priorities ahead of its July comprehensive spending review and finalising its vision for the next decade in the review of the ten-year transport plan.

The UK's road network has suffered from years of under-investment and as such it is vital that planned improvements are delivered as soon as possible. We are the fourth largest economy in the world and yet seem unable to afford to build ourselves a few extra feet of road to ease acute congestion which wastes time and money.

A coalition has been formed by the AA Motoring Trust, British Chambers of Commerce, Confederation of British Industry, Freight Transport Association, RAC Foundation and the Road Haulage Association to achieve more roads spending.

Firstly we must ensure we get the most out of our existing road network. But better management can never provide a substitute for building extra capacity, particularly on industry's key trade routes: the M1, M4, M6, M25 and M60/62. Now is the time to commit funds to widen these key stretches of road.

The 2004 comprehensive spending review must allocate £4.2bn over the next three years to deliver the long overdue improvements to these roads that are in the Government's current Targeted Programme of Improvements (TPI). A further £8.2bn of widening on these routes will be needed by 2010 and this should be at the heart of the new ten-year transport plan. With £38bn collected in tax from road users each year, the investment could be financed from the proceeds of just six months' road taxation.

An extra lane just 12 feet wide will relieve the congestion on our motorways and save billions of pounds and billions of wasted man hours.

MALCOLM BINGHAM

Regional policy manager, Freight Transport Association.