Who on earth is the genius who decided to turn the Sadlers Farm roundabouts at Benfleet into just one large roundabout before opening the A130 and A13 link roads?

This has caused utter misery for hundreds of motorists.

My wife is a nurse at Orsett Hospital and it used to take us, at most, ten minutes to get from home to Pitsea. It now takes 40 minutes.

Collecting her at 6pm, we would arrive home at 6.30pm, but the earliest we got home last week was 7pm.

Could someone please give me this idiot’s name?

David Jolley
Rushbottom Lane
Benfleet

...It does not surprise me there is gridlock caused by the Sadlers Farm junction.

I sent an e-mail two years ago suggesting it would be a mistake to get rid of the five mini-roundabouts, not just because of the traffic issues, but also due to the unnecessary cost.

I can clearly remember how bad it was before they changed to the five mini roundabouts as I drove through there almost every day.

The least they could have done was to complete the link road between the A13 and A130 before starting work on the main roundabout.

Alan James
Belchamps Way
Hockley

...When I was a child, I went to Sunday school and was told the story of Moses, and how he led his people to freedom by parting the Red Sea.

If he had lived today and had come to Benfleet, he could have parted the Sadlers Farm roundabout and led us all to freedom.

But, sadly, the job has gone to someone else, who we will call the boss.

The boss then got another 12 to 15 people to advise him on what to do. None of them lived nearby, but they would be paid a lot of money.

The boss said after a year or two: “Don’t worry, I have a cunning plan. We will employ 100 men to start work on it, 25 to start digging, 25 to have a tea break and 50 to put out cones.”

When they were only a third of the way through the project, work slowed down.

The boss said to just keep going as they were still getting paid.

As traffic was going so slowly, he had another plan, to put up temporary traffic lights. The only problem was they were all on red at the same time.

I would like to put a happy ending to my story, but I don’t know if I will still be around as I am getting on in years.

Brian Neighbour
Mandeville Way
Benfleet

...The Echo reported that frustrated motorists in Castle Point breathed a sigh of relief when congestion at Sadlers Farm “appeared to ease up” (Mar 19).

It must have been the shortest sigh in history, because whenever this miraculous transformation took place, it wasn’t on Monday morning.

I tried to get from Church Road, Thundersley, to Cemetery Corner, Benfleet, and every route was gridlocked.

The traffic stretched along the A13 back eastwards past the junction with Kents Hill Road. It probably went up Bread and Cheese Hill, past the council offices, as it had done all last week.

Side roads were blocked as motorists tried to join the queue and failed, not only in London Road but in side roads off London Road and Church Road.

In the High Road, the traffic stretched almost to Cemetery Corner and in Church Road, it went back towards the traffic lights at the Manor Road junction.

If this is what constitutes congestion easing up, I’ll eat my hat.

Rodney Cousins
Manor Road
Thundersley