I would just like to congratulate the Green Party on the thoroughly grand job it has done of messing up one of the main roads going into Brighton.

Since the introduction of bus lanes on Lewes Road, a five-minute journey from the bottom of The Avenue to Hartington Road takes 40 minutes.

It doesn’t matter what time of day, the roads are completely gridlocked.

The few people who know the back roads through Moulsecoomb are now using them but are so frustrated that they speed. The level of frustration on the roads is much worse and now nobody wants to give way to the buses which seem incapable of staying in their lanes.

Lewes Road was not bad before the new layout but now it is a complete mess and is best avoided. Was this the idea, or is it just going to be an excuse to introduce a congestion charge?

Thanks so much, Green Party, for making Brighton a dreadful place to visit. If you manage to drive into Brighton, the parking charges will make no one want to stop, let alone return.

The damage is done and is probably irreversible. I hope the Green Party is really proud of the chaos it has created.

Sharon Dawes, Hornby Road, Brighton

As a bicycle repair man, I have to contend daily with the twisted and damaged remains of bicycles which have been bulldozed by vehicles or in collision with slow-moving pedestrians along Lewes Road.

The logic behind siting the cycle lanes between the pavement and bus shelter standings completely escapes me.

Why didn’t the planners place cycle lanes on the wide footway along the route to the universities, thereby leaving the carriageway alone?

Take a look at Southampton, where a bus lane is handed back for public use after a period of three hours at peak times.

I have suggested several times previously in the council chamber that perhaps we should ask a local junior school to take over the highways, planning and housing maintenance responsibilities of this council since it would probably do a better job.

Stewart Gover, Elm Grove, Brighton

Is this some kind of Green joke? Am I dreaming? I was unlucky enough to drive along Upper Lewes Rd last Monday morning at about 8.30am. With the traffic stacked up halfway along the road, I assumed there had been a crash and dropped down on to Lewes Road.

There, I wondered if there had been a major incident, with all the traffic going nowhere. Perhaps we had been invaded by people from Mars...

But no, it was the Greens with this stupid new road layout.

With all this traffic going nowhere, people are going to suffer from the pollution.

It makes me wonder, these people running our council, are they really aliens trying to destroy us? They’re doing a thumping good job.

Mr A Gumbrill, Chapel Mews, Hove

While your Top Gear-style road race of Lewes Road between three reporters made entertaining reading (The Argus, October 2), it was about as scientific as one of Jeremy Clarkson’s tests.

Your “race” went in the opposite direction to most other people and vehicles at that time of day when the benefits of the bus lane would be less obvious. Once in the bus lane, the bus made rapid and reliable progress.

Your reporter had many alternative services he could have used, like our customers do normally. Most of our buses are so frequent that it is the interval between suitable services that is more critical, rather than a precise timetable.

Nevertheless we do operate these services with no more than five minutes’ delay for over 90% of the time, despite the challenges on the roads.

The scheduled journey time to Coldean Lane is just 16 minutes at 9.06am, giving even your intrepid cyclist a run for his money.

Your “race” did at least show how good highway design can work for bicycles, buses and cars and, don’t forget, those bus lanes help carry many thousands of passengers every day – 44 million last year, which has to be good news for car-users, too.

We welcome the new bus lanes, as will our passengers who benefit from them.

Martin Harris, managing director, Brighton and Hove Bus and Coach Company