We do need to get most of these big lorries off the road

I was struck by the enormous number of lorries journeying up and down the motorway.

Even the M54 was plagued by these leviathans and two or three times one would creep past another at only a very slight faster speed, taking several minutes to do so. Not very thoughtful.

On the M6 there were large groups of lorries, many with European registration plates, trundling along, at times outnumbering the cars.

This number of lorries has a very high financial and environmental cost. Motorways and other roads have had to be strengthened and enlarged at costs which must run into billions. It does not help that we were forced to allow lorries to increase in size from 38 tonnes to 44 tonnes to suit a foreign group of countries mostly known by two letters. (Clue: the two letters are E and U.)

The lorries often cause problems by breaking down, shedding their load or just by the sheer number causing congestion.

Listen to the travel reports each morning. Then they belch out diesel fumes – which we are told are linked to around 40,000 deaths a year costing the NHS £605m a year in the UK.

This problem is partly our fault as we have demanded or accepted food and other products, often out of season, from countries across Europe.

But is also partly the fault of the EU which treats the whole area as one country so manufactured goods are driven hundreds of miles to places in the British Isles instead of being made locally.

We need to vastly reduce our reliance on out of season foods and goods made abroad and make more use of local foods and locally made goods. We need to get most of these lorries off the road. One can only hope that leaving the EU will assist with this need.

Richard Camp, Wellington

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