The group descended upon the town on Thursday and were shown key traffic blackspots and the possible route of the western bypass.

They left agreeing that a bypass would be the solution to the town's traffic misery – but say some tough decisions will have to be made if such a scheme is ever to see the light of day.

Foremost among those decisions is the question of whether residents would be willing to sacrifice Sudbury's free parking for a bypass?
Joining the touring party was Free Press News Editor Ryan Goad, who explains why the decision between free parking and a bypass now seems inevitable.

The tour was billed as a "fact-finding" mission. A chance for Sudbury's councillors to show highways experts at the county council and key members of the county's transport committee an array of traffic problems that blight the town and to float possible solutions.

Proposed solutions were plentiful but, as you would expect, the one recurring, "fix-all" answer was a western bypass, a road that would leave Ballingdon Hill and snake across farmland and part of the meadows, and connect with the roundabout at the top of Melford Road.

Peter Grimm, the county council's strategic transport policy officer who led the touring party, pointed out very early on that a bypass, or relief road as highway experts would have it, is still very much backed by Suffolk County Council.

But, by the end of the tour, it became clear that a large number of obstacles is standing in the way of the road and the reality is that a bypass, if not a pipe dream, is still a long way off.

Paul Hopfensberger, Bury St Edmunds councillor and vice-chairman of the roads and transport committee, said afterwards: "It is blatantly obvious that we need to reduce the volume of traffic in Sudbury. It is a beautiful medieval town that is blighted by traffic problems.

"I think we all agree that a bypass is the long-term solution but, in the meantime, we need to improve sustainable transport methods in Sudbury."

Top of those "sustainable transport methods" are parking charges in Sudbury which according to Mr Hopfen-sperger have proved to work elsewhere.

He said: "It is proved that introducing car parking charges reduces the traffic and increases the number of people using public transport."

Mr Grimm went so far as telling the delegation he was "convinced" that if alternative ways of cutting congestion, including parking charges, were not investigated the government would simply not back a bypass bid.
Without government funding the scheme would never get off the ground.

Other hurdles standing in the way of a bypass are the reservations held by Essex County Council and Braintree Council (the proposed bypass would cut across part of Essex) and other major landowners.

There are also environmental concerns. Standing on a bridge over Belchamp Brook – a stretch of water the proposed road would cross – on the picturesque Sudbury to Rodbridge railway walk, Suffolk County Council's senior ecologist, Sue Hooton, told the party: "There is an environmental impact of any road. It is going to cut through the valley as well as the river valley itself.

"It would cut a flood plain in half, there are animals such as otters and doormice on this land and a bypass would be visible in the outer landscape."

Finally there are the similar demands from other parts of the county. It is likely that unless Sudbury can persuade county chiefs that it warrants a major road above the likes of Great Barton and Brandon - villages also appealing for bypasses - then there will be no government funding.

In the short to mid-term other solutions need to be found - and there were plenty floated during the tour.

The first idea, put forward by Cross Street resident Davina Keeble, who met the party outside the controversial build-out in her road, was to reinstate the one-way system - up Cross Street and down Friars and Church Street - that was in operation when Ballingdon Bridge was being re-built.

Under the proposals, a roundabout or traffic lights would be installed at the Church Street/Cross Street junction.

This idea was cautiously received by the group with Mr Grimm saying that both a roundabout and traffic lights would add further pollution to an area that is likely, because of the high amount of toxic fumes, to soon be named an air quality management zone.

Another possible alteration to the town's road lay-out that was floated during the tour was replacing the two small roundabouts at the busy Belle Vue junction into one large one, thus allowing traffic to come out of Great Eastern Road and head up towards Chilton and the A134 without going through the centre of town.

On the theme of taking traffic away from the centre of town, the baffled touring party was also shown the lorry park at the bottom of Station Road.

Virtually everyone new to the town was shocked that a lorry park could be placed so haphazardly in the middle of Sudbury and were sympathetic to the need to re-locate it.

A site near Tesco or on the Chilton Woods development were both mooted.

But, it was the issue of the town's free parking that the group kept returning to and it, almost certainly, will be high on the agenda when the roads and transport committee meets in Ipswich in February to discuss the findings of their mission.

Sudbury town councillor and member of the county's roads and transport committee Peter Beer said: "I think we all came away with the understanding that no one single issue is going to solve the problem of getting the bypass.

"We need to get the lorry park moved out of town and that is imperative.

"I am very much against parking charges in the town but I think there is now a need to have a proper debate on the issue. I think everyone left the meeting singing from the same hymn sheet; we all want a bypass but it is how we are going to achieve it."