SIR, It is exceedingly uncommon that I find myself agreeing with Nick Wirsten on nearly every point he makes in his letter (Selkirk bypass is a pipe-dream, Border Telegraph, April 29), but I do. However, I would like to add the most telling reason for a bypass in Selkirk is what he has failed to mention. It is that their negligence in allowing schoolchildren to continue to be exposed to potentially fatal pollution in attending Selkirk High School makes Transport Scotland liable for immense compensation claims in the future.

Some weeks ago, a Sunday paper published figures of the most polluted streets in Scotland. The reported pollution arises from diesel exhaust fumes which were monitored by Friends of the Earth and other agencies and contain Nitric Oxide (NO2) which is an acknowledged cancer causing substance and other constituents provoke asthma.

The EU has tried to introduce legislation to reduce the pollution but the UK, including Scotland, has no plans to meet the advisory levels before 2030. I was worried enough to make enquiries of several agencies including SEPA, Science Advice, Scottish Air Quality and SBC and found that no-one has ever monitored the pollution in Selkirk and that Selkirk was not considered “at risk” town.

So the Selkirk schoolchildren going uphill to the High School every morning during the Hawick/Gala (and vice versa) rush hour, and at the other three times a day they travel the narrow and dangerous pavement between the High School and town, are not at risk? That is the official Scottish Borders Council view. Vehicles toiling up Tower St are nevertheless belching out quite a cocktail of poisons which Selkirk schoolchildren have to breathe.

This morning on Radio Scotland, Eleanor Bradford, the Health Correspondent, gave a précis if the Government’s failure to protect the population in this important health area. Even a half hour exposure to diesel exhaust is universally reckoned sufficient to cause lung damage in the longer term.

At the Hustings meeting this week, a question was asked about this very point. Regrettably two prominent candidates opposed the bypass; two strongly advocated it and the others had no discernible view. To their great credit, by a show of hands, the Selkirk audience almost unanimously approved the building of a bypass.

The choices are therefore: Ignore Selkirk people, the health of their children and do not have a bypass. Close the A7 when children go to/from school. Re-direct all children on a circuitous route to school avoiding the A7. Or, avoid the immense costs of compensation, protect the health of our children and build the bypass.

Option four is a 'no-brainer’ and what we should demand as a right.

But what do we have to do to get the politicians/officials to do the sensible thing? Voting some of them out would perhaps help and a bit more local democracy.

I am, etc.

Dr Lindsay Neil Hillside Terrace Selkirk