Madam,

Travel north from Aberystwyth to the ’Starship Enterprise’ otherwise known as Bow Street (fine street lighting, traffic-calming measures, frequent speed camera vans and now granted £6.5m to re-open a train station).

Beyond Bow Street follow the main A487 into Talybont (not up to Bow Street standards although frequent council activity has been added to by a host of street lighting). Out of Talybont, go round the dark tight bends and under the over-hanging unstable trees, then down the sloping tree-lined tunnel towards Taliesin.

Build up speed and then hit your brakes far too late as you suddenly note a 30mph sign only as you as enter “the village the county council forgot”.

You will find no effective traffic calming measures as you enter or leave Taliesin at the south end of the village. Cars and motorbikes hit 60, 70 and even 80mph as they speed out of the last 300 yards heading in the direction of Aberystwyth, ignoring the entrance to and from the Dolybont lane on the right, overtaking on the upward slope before they reach the bends.

Boy-racers see this stretch as a challenge to prove their manhood pitting their speed against others; and school holiday periods are rife with the screaming sound of bikers riding machines powering out of the village with the same acceleration capability as a Formula 1 racing car.

Children crossing the A487 to the weed-strewn bus-stop on the other side of the road to travel to school take their lives into their own hands, and take the brunt of verbal abuse from drivers.

Police camera vans are conspicuous both by their absence in Taliesin but also by their frequent regularity in Bow Street.

Limited street lighting pales into insignificance compared with Bow Street and Talybont.

During the recent tornado and gales the council’s very tardy response in clearing the trees and debris from on the A487 was in sharp contrast to villages and roads closer to Aberystwyth.

What would it cost to bring in effective traffic-calming measures, tree-surgeons to prune the dangerous trees, improved lighting, and to ensure that, when there is weather damage, Taliesin doesn’t have to wait for excessive times for roads to be cleared? Certainly not anything like the money that has gone to and will be going into Bow Street.

By comparison the costs to put right the injustice of the council’s lack of attention to Taliesin will be a drop in the ocean.

Twenty years ago families of Taliesin vigorously protested over the danger presented by speeding vehicles at the north end of the village. Today, at the south end of Taliesin there are similar feelings of concern and anger and the council needs to respond quickly to improve this dire and dangerous situation.

We therefore present the council with a simple and ready answer: meet, listen and speak with us and together we can agree a cost-effective plan of action which the council can quickly implement.

Yours etc,

Mr H Morgan; Mr & Mrs A Foulkes, Taliesin.

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