Something appears to have gone badly wrong with the much-needed survey of public preferences for dealing with the traffic problems of the Aire Valley. It seemed likely that there would have been a tremendous response from local people to the chance have their say over what should happen next, once the Bingley relief road is completed and the valley finds itself with a new bottleneck on the Saltaire side of Cottingley.

After all, this has been a major talking point for years. Everyone who has to endure delays along the A650/A657 corridor has a view about it, born of the bitter experience of waiting in long traffic queues.

Yet of the 60,000 residents who were due to be asked to fill in a questionnaire, only 3,169 have responded - barely more than five per cent. That suggests either a depressingly high level of apathy or problems with the distribution of the questionnaires.

The latter seems a possibility. Several people have told the T&A that they did not receive a copy of the form. But neither can apathy be ruled out if, as Shipley MP Chris Leslie has claimed, the survey was seen as being biased away from the building of a new road and was worded too vaguely.

Even so, though, almost half of the people who did fill in the form voted for a major scheme to tackle the next phase of the route. With extra money being announced for road-building by the Chancellor in his public-spending plans this week, it would seem to be the ideal time to pursue this proposal.