Below is what I said, including comments regarding the traffic problem, which might be of interest to readers:

As you the council correctly says, Lynn is a sub-regional centre of some importance for its surrounding area.

It is a major employment area and it attracts many visitors and shoppers, now a seven-day-a-week activity, and a major centre for secondary and further education.

Its hospital provides a comprehensive health-care facility for the sub-region.

The problems faced, as I see them, can be identified as follows:

a)There is very little land remaining within the confines of the River Great Ouse, the southern, eastern and northern bypasses on which to carry out any further development.

The Nar Ouse Area being the last such large area of land currently under development yet there is a continuing requirement from government to find more housing land;

b) Lynn is well-served by the electrified rail line to Ely, Cambridge and London but direct rail links to other parts of the county and elsewhere were lost in the 1960s causing a heavy reliance on the motor car, which reliance seems to be ever increasing.

The severance of the rail connection to Lynn Docks some years ago was short-sighted in the extreme and has resulted in heavy lorry flows on the eastern and northern bypasses;

THROUGH-ROADS

c)The road infrastructure is generally poor.

Internally there are very few through-road links between residential areas which give rise to heavy traffic on the major spine roads, in particular Gayton Road, Wootton Road and Gaywood Road.

Of these three roads, Gayton Road is under increasing pressure.

During the school term the bus traffic generated by Springwood High School in Queensway finds its way on to this road, together with much of the car traffic, the remainder penetrating the Newlyn residential area where it meets up with the traffic from the Field Lane schools endeavouring to exit on to Wootton Road and again to Gayton Road via Kent Road.

In addition, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital is a major traffic generator as are the many and still developing residential estates in the Fairstead, and the existing Springwood and New Lynn areas.

Not just at peak times can traffic be seen tailing back along the length of Gayton Road in both directions.

Externally, the major routes linking the town with the sub-region are again poor.

Loss of trunk road status for the A17 has reduced the chance of major improvements to this important route which carries heavy lorry traffic at all times.

Similarly the A47 east of Lynn and the A10 south are heavily trafficked.

The eastern bypass, which provides a major access point from these major roads for lorries to Lynn Docks, is now frequently at capacity in the section between Hardwick Roundabout and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital;

d) From a commercial and shopping standpoint, Lynn is considered by outsiders as a depressed area.