I HAVE been a resident in Westhoughton for the last 30 years, and over the last few years have seen the building of houses and flats on every spare piece of land. No thought seems to have been taken on how the road system is supposed to cope with all the added traffic.

As business premises have been demolished to make more land available for housing, Westhoughton has become a town of commuters. It requires a better transport system, be it public or private.

Several years ago, I leased from the council a field off Wearish Lane for grazing horses. We had to vacate the land due to the council re-locating the youth rugby club.

The pitch the club had been using off Cricketers Way was required, according to the council, for a retail park. The council stated that Westhoughton was urgently in need of more retail outlets.

No retail outlets were built on this land. Where was Sainsbury's then?

It was later re-designated as building land for houses. Flats have now been built on this land.

Last year, planning permission to build houses on the land off Cricketers Way, presently occupied by the cricket club, was refused. One reason the Highways Department gave was that the surrounding roads could not handle the extra traffic.

Sainsbury's have now given intentions to build a supermarket on the same land, with a proposed car park for 250 cars. At a rough estimate, this would mean that Cricketers Way and the surrounding roads would have to handle an extra 500 cars an hour. Has Sainsbury's come up with a magical remedy to ease traffic congestion on the town's roads?

If so, could the company please wave its magic wand over the town's roads and make life a lot easier for its commuters.

The land that has been earmarked for the cricket field is at present classed as open land, and can only be used for recreational pursuits. Does this mean that, if the cricket field and social club is built on this land, the council will then find an excuse in a couple of years to move them to a green field site, and re-designate the land for housing? That is, if there are any fields left to be built on.

Mr D Ryan, Quakerfields, Westhoughton