Sir Edward Leigh, the Member of Parliament for Gainsborough, has written to Lincolnshire County Council protesting the closure of Hawthorn Road as a through road between Reepham and Lincoln. The new Eastern Bypass is set to cut the road in two, and the two sections of the road will be linked by a foot bridge rather than a road bridge.

"The most logical solution would be for a road bridge crossing over the Bypass, but I understand this has been turned town in favour of a non-vehicular bridge,” the MP said in his letter to Tony McArdle, the Chief Executive of Lincolnshire County Council. “This is both illogical and objectionable.”

Edward Leigh, the former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee which investigates government waste, pointed out the strenuous opposition of residents meant that building a cheaper foot bridge was a false economy.

“Residents are dead-set against this proposal, and if we spend the money on a non-vehicular bridge now, an increase in local pressure is likely to build up, and we will almost certainly be forced to give in eventually and build a road bridge to restore the use of Hawthorn Road.”

The Member of Parliament concluded “it would be much wiser to address this problem effectively now rather than to waste money on an unwanted, undesirable, and ineffective non-solution.”