Enjoyed reading the lead letter in today's Express & Echo as I travellled on the train to London - it was my contribution to to the continuing debate on the faulty traffic lights at the First & Last junction [where Cowick Street. Cowick Lane, Dunsford Road and Buddle Lane all converge].

The sorry saga of faulty traffic lights

I WOULD like to apologise to pedestrians and commuters for the disruption caused by the failure of traffic lights at the junction of Buddle Lane, Dunsford Road, Cowick Lane and Cowick Street at the outer edge of my Cowick ward (Children's 'lives at risk' after traffic lights go out, Express & Echo, 14 June ).

However, as an Exeter City Councillor it is not for me to apologise – the root problem needs to be laid firmly at the feet of Devon County Council.

Despite this, I have received many comments of concern from residents about the problem.

I believe that these traffic signals first failed on Friday, when I hope the self-diagnosis system reported the fault directly to the urban traffic control computer in County Hall.

I saw that these traffic signals were out of action on Saturday morning as I was carrying out a ward walk around Cowick.

At the time I was not unduly worried as there were signs indicating the lights were out of action and an engineer was on site trying to rectify the problem.

On Sunday, I received a copy of an email sent to the Highways Department looking after Exeter from my fellow councillor for Cowick, Cllr Heather Morris, indicating that the traffic lights were still out of action.

Mid morning on Tuesday I returned from another ward visit and wrote to the county council's Highways Operational Control Centre informing them that I was extremely concerned that the situation still persisted.

Also, there seemed to be little, if anything, happening to resolve the fault.

I understand that Devon County Council's policy on traffic management and traffic signals states that "serious faults will be attended within four hours and non-serious within 13 hours" and it goes on to say: "Portable traffic signals are used whenever there is a need to manage traffic whilst work is carried out..."

So what happened at this junction? Not four hours, not even 13 hours. Nearly five days! Why the delay?

I am led to believe that a part was specially driven down from the Midlands to rectify the fault. Again why the delay? And at what cost?

If the part had been ordered early on Monday, an overnight courier service would have guaranteed delivery before 10am for about £50.

At the time of writing both Cllr Morris and I are still awaiting a response from Devon County Council about this matter.

Cllr Paul Bull

Labour and Co-operative City Councillor for Cowick

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