I read in disbelief about the potential five-year delay in road improvements to the Acle Straight due to a five-year study required by Highways England to see if the five millimetre diameter 'Whirlpool Ramshorn Snail' has settled in its new home.
This is truly unbelievable, what is this country coming to? Having successfully moved the little fellows to a new home, monitored them and watched them breed. I ask what more can they do to prove the move has been successful?
Maybe Highways England wants them to come up with a road plan too, or maybe design a new visitors centre for the Broads Authority site at Acle Bridge, minuscule brains seem to be a requirement for this project.
Come on, get your act together, what's happened to common sense? Great Yarmouth now has a port which needs good road links to trade properly. If you listen to the traffic reports most mornings there's a 20 minute delay getting into Yarmouth. With the A47 Blofield bottleneck improvement going ahead it only leaves the Acle Straight to duel then a purposeful road link will have been achieved to the distribute goods through the country.
Please show some common sense, the new housing scheme for this minuscule snail works, it's been proven, they're thriving, now let's get on and improve life for humans as well.
Ron Yaxley, Coltishall.
And reader Ron wasn't the only one to write into us after reading about the A47 snails. Here's what Dick Melton from Hunstanton had to say.
So we have to wait another five years before there is any improvements to the A47 Acle straight all because of a small microscopic snail. The people of Dersingham, Ingoldisthorpe and Snettisham had been waiting for a bypass for many years then in the 80s things began to move and a route was decided on taking all the traffic away from the village. All of a sudden progress came to a halt as a small moth was found right in the way of this new road. The village people were up in arms. One day they marched through the village of Dersingham bringing all the traffic to a halt. No one except one or two naturalists had ever seen this moth. Then in 1990, after many years of waiting, the bypass was opened. But, you might ask, what happened to the moth? Well I was told that in 1991 five of them were seen hitching a lift to Roydon Common.
Dick Melton, Buterfield Rise, Hunstanton.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here