SOUTH COAST CHANNEL LINK With all the hype surrounding the
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rail and road routes from the Channel Tunnel to London and the North there is a danger that other essential transport links will be underplayed, if not ignored.
For many years there has been a crying need to improve the south coast route between the Channel ports and centres of population and industry in Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset and beyond.
Users of the A27 and A259 travelling from or to Southampton, Brighton and Hastings will not have to be reminded that the present roads are woefully inadequate: not only for the anticipated growth which will be genertaed by the opening of the Chunnel in 1993, but also for current economic needs.
The south coast route has only seen intermittent improvement in recent years, with more in the pipeline or promised, but the sorry truth is that the prospect of a long-distance link of the required standard is a pipedream.
Local industry and county and town authorities are making praiseworthy efforts to step up the pace of improvement along the south coast routes, but the ultimate responsibility rests with the Government.
A dual-carriageway link from Kent via Hastings and Brighton to the West is the least that is needed, and needed soon. This would pay off not only for commercial transport users but also for the growing leisure and tourist industry which would be stimulated by better links to Europe via the Channel.
In addition to boosting the economies of Kent and Sussex, such an improved route would relieve the foreseeable congestion on the M20-M25 link which will come under con siderable pressure after 1993.
The Transport Minister must act now if the south coast expressway is to have any chance of becoming a reality by the 1990s.
A Clark, Hastings, East Sussex.