I LIVE in the Fens but commute to London from Huntingdon railway station on weekday afternoons. My car journey from Manea to Huntingdon used to take about 25-30 minutes, but roadworks in the town have dramatically increased my travel time to about an hour

I LIVE in the Fens but commute to London from Huntingdon railway station on weekday afternoons. My car journey from Manea to Huntingdon used to take about 25-30 minutes, but roadworks in the town have dramatically increased my travel time to about an hour - the same time as it takes to travel from Huntingdon to King's Cross.

Travelling in from the direction of the A141 into the town now entails a queue, sometimes backing up to the Hartford village sign. And, because of the insane one-way system, one problem locks up the whole road system.

In an effort to avoid these unacceptable delays I, like other motorists, sometimes opt for the only other route to the railway station, which is to take the A14 and get off at Brampton and cut back from there. But since "improvements" and a traffic light system that defies all logic at the Spittals Interchange, there are frequently tailbacks that can sometimes go as far as the Tesco roundabout. Lengthy queues again, but at least the traffic does move at a reasonable rate and few overturned lorries.

You don't need to be a commuter to realise there are serious problems in and around the town and yet chaos seems to accompany work - however temporary - carried out to bring about improvements. And the legacy of all this money spent on altering the roads? Even more chaos.

For example, how many sets of pedestrian crossings and traffic lights can you get in the space of 250 yards when you do manage to get onto the ring road? Yes, one particular stretch does have a health centre and a supermarket and the safety of pedestrians is paramount, but the number of lights within yards of each other beggars belief.

The town centre is an island, surrounded by a barrier that is almost impossible to penetrate at times and it's called the ring road or should that be a ring of steel? Someone, please ring the changes.

DAVID HARRISON, Manea