WE were somewhat surprised at an announcement that there was to be a public consultation exercise on Skipton traffic measures next Friday (we can hear the groans all round from readers - "Oh no, not another one!").

It transpires that this is not a new one, it is merely the next step in the last public consultation exercise which just about everyone has forgotten about (including us, to be honest).

We should not be surprised that people find it hard to keep track of the various traffic improvements for it is a long, tiresome process in which months drift by and nothing happens.

Take for instance the hcv ban on the High Street (one thing which does change rapidly and effortlessly are new terms; hcvs are what used to be hgvs but we'll keep it simple and stick to calling them lorries). Last June we reported that the lorry ban should be in place by the end of the summer; all that we were waiting for were signs alerting lorry drivers to the fact that the ban was now effective.

Those signs must take some manufacturing as they are still conspicuous by their absence, although they remain on the current schedule of works.

But back to that long-forgotten idea of creating another roundabout on Keighley Road, a few yards from the existing one on Caroline Street.

Last year we advocated a one-way system around Cavendish Street, Swadford Street and Keighley Road put forward as part of an overall development scheme from architects Bowman Riley and Skipton Properties. It was ignored.

Whether the new scheme does anything more than nibble at the outskirts of the problem remains to be seen.

Estimated completion date: by 2008.