THE news that our Town Hall bosses are to spend £2.5m on off-road cycle tracks will seem like "manna from Heaven" to the residents of Hulton Lane, and, I suspect, for many other residents living on or near our abysmal roads.

May I presume that the majority of commuters will leave their cars at home, and that thousands of cyclists will pedal merrily to work carrying their laptops and whatever other ancillary objects they find necessary to the running of today's economy on their handlebars?

We know what a boon these lanes are to the hundreds and hundreds of cyclists that use them daily on Beaumont Road and the Ring Road.

This being the case, can we residents look forward to no longer being shaken from our beds by traffic falling into all the holes, and maybe, just maybe, in the fullness of time, we will see contractors at work laying a new surface?

Unfortunately, there has to be a downside to all this joyous news.

What will happen when our town centre is devoid of traffic and all the wardens are redundant? Why, the loss of revenue from the parking tickets will be an excuse for another escalation in the council tax, that's what!

TF Hampson

Hulton Lane