Instead of fences, why can't we insist on 'defensive hedging' i.e prickly hedges that would be more of a deterent than a fence? The ecological advantages of hedges barely need pointing out these days, except, it would seem to the council planners. Thorns, berries, purfume, oxygen etc etc. I defy any burgler to scramble through Rosa Rugosa.

It's so easy to put up fences and posts, but why do I feel so hemmed in all the time?

Instead of traffic lights at complicated junctions, why can't we have a police or traffic constables to stand on a podium and judge which is the most needy stream to let through? I have waited at a red light often when there is no traffic for the other streams. They would also be able to note traffic regulation violations in place of cameras, and be a police presence.

I would be happy to go to any meeting where a fence is proposed to argue the case for a hedge.

We could lead the way with a pilot scheme, to reduce 'forests of posts', with 'forests of growth'.

Reply: Hedges can be better than fences, but it is a matter of personal taste. I favour lights with traffic sensors to improve flows at light controlled junctions. Having a police person at every jucntion 24 hours a day would be very expensive.

Drivers already pay £50 Billion every year in motoring related taxes and government spends just £5.88 billion on the roads. We are seeing £44 Billion in motoring taxes spent elsewhere and nobody will accept tolls on the roads we already own when £44 Billion is being wasted.

Roads are the arteries of the nation and a provider of economic viability. Without good roads; towns, cities and businesses wither and die. We cannot run our nation from bus stops or railway stations.

Roads are required and the freedom to use them without tolls or road pricing is a basic human freedom which should never be compromised. The toll roads on the continent are mostly in socialist countries.

John Redwood is not a socialist.

How can we call ourselves a successful economy when our roads and transport networks are so awful. The Germans, and the French seem to be able to build things, yet all we do is pay millions to useless consultants to find excuses for doing nothing !

We can't even build an A303 tunnel near Stonehenge, yet in Italy, the motorways pass through mountain ranges with ease with twin 2-lane and in some cases 3-LANE tunnels ! (look on the map near Genoa, if you don't believe it)

Those who wanted to get across significant chunks of London without 100 sets of traffic lights would be prepared to pay for the convenience (and speed).

Capacity needs to be increased in other areas also. I have experience of the Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham areas and extra capacity would be popular in those areas.

So far as traffic in towns and cities is concerned, I doubt that there is any way of improving matters in the long term, especially in London.

It is necessary to balance volume of traffic (we don't want too much), against free-flow (we want that), against safety for pedestrians (so we can't have too much speed).

The more cars in the city (bad for quality of life of residents) the slower traffic flows (good for safety of pedestrians, bad for drivers). We can remove chicanes and change traffic light sequences (good for flow of traffic, bad for safety of pedestrians), but in doing so we will free-up capacity and lead to more people travelling by car rather than bus (bad for flow, good for safety of pedestrians).

Road use in busy cities must be rationed. It can be rationed by price (as with the congestion charge) or by comfort (if you can't get around conveniently by car because it is too slow you will look for a better alternative). It is necessary, in my view, for some brutal honesty on this issue because it simply is not possible to accommodate all the people who would like to drive into and around our busy cities. For every irritatingly long red light there are drivers waiting to get back into their cars once that light has been shortened, the free-flow of the 1960s will never be achieved again.

I would suggest leaving towns and cities to decide on their own policies and that central government should only have policies for the national network.

Seriously, for a moment, both local and national government see cars as first a source of easy revenue. Railways are just not taken seriously anymore, which is a shame because we sort of invented them.

There is one thing that could be done in order to change the way we consume transport and that is to subsidise or give tax breaks to one type. If you remember, diesel used to be cheap and people bought diesels, then it was biofuels, and probably marsh gas after that. Until governments actually invest in transport for the good of the country, rather than merely using it as a source of revenue, consumers will opt for the cheapest thing. Until someone taxes it.

One reason for this is the fact that we do not construct our roads as a collection of "lanes". You will rarely see a sign that says "left lane must turn left". UK road designers still insist on merging lanes far to often at motorway junctions. On a three lane motorway the inside lane should become the "off ramp" and the two outer lanes should continue until thay are joined by the "on ramp", after the junction, to make three lanes again till the next junction. This way you reduce the "brake wave" of the new traffic merging onto the motorway, by far the greatest cause of traffic coming to a stop, a mile back from the junction, for no apparent reason.