I WAS delighted to read the Podium article (Gazette, February 8), ‘Maybe it’s time to think about giving up your car’.

I have long felt that there are far too many cars on the roads. I grant that some are necessary (for example; people unable to walk far, or business people with calls to make in a wide area, or people in rural areas without bus services). But, surely, many are not really necessary.

We are encouraged to walk and cycle more, for the good of our health, but to cycle on roads used by so much traffic is extremely dangerous. Only dedicated cycle routes seem safe.

I was astonished to find that the truthful front page headline ‘Car Chaos’ (January 25) referred to Windermere and Bowness and not Kendal, which I have long regarded as the traffic chaos capital of Cumbria!

The car invasion is spreading to Ulverston, where in at least one town, a street intended for two-way traffic, is now reduced to one possible lane, as an unbroken line of cars is parked on each side of the road, the wheels on one side being placed on the (already narrow) pavement.

How do people in wheelchairs or mums with prams and trolleys manage?

To endorse Rose Whiting’s opinions expressed in her Podium article, I can but recall one of the World War II government posters - ‘Is your journey really necessary?’

Pat Moneypenny

Ulverston