SIR — The comments in the letter by Jim Butterworth (Free Press October 12) in respect of the A39 were succinctly put and unarguable, except maybe if taken as a token of absolute neglect by successive Liberal Democrat county councils of the needs of Minehead and West Somerset.

The West Somerset Railway development on the old car park at Minehead Station, of which the county council was the lead member, together new street lighting for Minehead and other fairly recent improvements, would argue against that.

There is an old joke about a very self congratulatory chicken talking to a pig and congratulating him for his part in providing man's favourite breakfast - bacon and eggs.

Ah, says the pig sadly to the chicken, you're only involved but I am totally committed!

Well my property is situated on the sharp bend in Washford opposite Rodhuish Lane and, as Jim mentions, the unrecorded accidents and injuries, particularly on this very dangerous bend, continue year on year.

So far there have been five serious collisions with the wall which borders my property in this year alone, and it's a rare year when I do not offer tea and comfort to "minor" accident victims - so like the pig, I'm both involved and committed and utterly in sympathy with the points he made.

I should say that I was the district councillor for Washford at the time we lost our by-pass priority status.

I did manage to get the county councillor who was the cabinet member for highways, together with the Liberal Democrat parliamentary spokesman, to my house and we had what turned out to be an acrimonious, discussion but neither the PPS nor I could shift the cabinet member from his position.

It was, I agree, in every respect a disgrace.

As for my wall, which some poor people, rather like speeding and inattentive lemmings, seem drawn towards, then the least that could be provided by the county is decent signage which warns and slows people as they approach the bend from Williton.

About six months ago, having first approached my parish council, I met with our local county councillor and cabinet member Christine Lawrence on site and I offered to donate a strip of land to ameliorate the problem.

I have of course heard nothing further. It is as if the act of talking about it will somehow have made it better and safer.

I can now no longer repair the damage to my progressively unsightly wall as it is too dangerous to do so, and I know also that in the absence of proper measures it would anyway be very temporary.

Without active political action and intervention, the injuries and damage will continue.

The wider problem of the A39 - which is in all respects a B road masquerading as something it isn't - really demands West Somerset county councillors who are focussed and a great deal less passive than we currently have, the honourable exception being Anthony Trollope-Bellew who has, I know, tried hard for improvements to the A39.

The Liberal Democrats' record in respect of the A39 is inglorious, but that particular event was over 20 years ago and the current Conservative administration has now been in power for over three years and our MP Ian Liddell-Granger for many years longer.

Perhaps it is time to shift our expectations of them up a notch now and to be impatient with them looking to the past as an excuse to do nothing in the present.

Ian Galloway,

Washford.