THE idea that 95 new homes are to be built on yet another site in Westhoughton fills me with a constant and overwhelming sense of dismay.

This coupled with the further news that even more homes are to be built at the Bellhouse Hartwell site in Daisy Hill compounds this.

It is almost impossible to calculate how much traffic this will generate on the already gridlocked roads of Westhoughton.

As any driver wishing to use Park Road at any time from 7am will testify, it is impossible to move faster than 10mph, and if you are unfortunate to live off Park Road, you are forced to rely on the generosity of other drivers to let you out of your side road.

We go to the hospital on a weekly basis for 8.30am and we never manage to get there, despite leaving home at about 8am for a four-mile drive.

On Tuesday of last week, 29 cars came down Park Road towards Westhoughton, and not one vehicle slowed down to allow us out, and, in our case, living in Forest Drive, we have to cross this line of traffic in the hope that someone on the opposite side will allow us in to their crawling lane.

To add insult to injury, our "clever" planners seem hell bent on adding even more vehicles to the euphemistically-named rush-hour traffic.

Enough is enough.

A pleasant market town has been turned into a boom town of some sort, but look what it has lost - green fields, a market and individual shops, and all for the doubtful pleasure of ever more estate agents, pizza palaces, beauty parlours, all of which have great interest in their own right - but so many!

I think the treatment of this one small area of Bolton is a disgrace, and the people who have perpetrated this disaster should be ashamed of themselves. I wonder, can anyone tell me what this small town has gained? I doubt it.

M Roughley Forest Drive Westhoughton