A CONCERNED group of Marlow folk who live near the Marlow By-pass the A404 have been campaigning for years for some action to reduce the perpetual noise emanating from that road.

The group bought their houses before the by-pass was built and its incessant, annual increasing in both traffic and sound has seriously intruded into both the privacy and quality of their lives throughout the entire day!

The road surface is traditional and, in true British style, the authorities consider resistance to wear paramount above all other considerations.

Around the USA capital - Washington DC - when faced with an identical problem the Americans showed initiative by adapting one of their constant sources of supply of waste products - used tyres - to be used as a modification to the noise factor in a new, more quiet, road surface material.

Whilst urban landscapes are disfigured by mountains of used tyres Blue Circle Industries are about to use such tyres to fuel its cement works on seven sites - and they claim it is "environmentally friendly" because "the kilns are so hot that they produce almost no emission or smells"!

That word "almost" is very significant!

In a joint venture with Sapphire Energy Recovery it is expected that they will be burning some 200,000 tons of tyres per year - but this is merely one half of the 39.5 million tyres scrapped in Britain every year!

It seems absurd that so much rejected material - which could be used in reducing the intrusive and destructive noise factor in road surfacing - is not utilised by local authorities responsible for road surfacing!

True, it may not last as long as current, traditional, road surfaces but so what? It is a constant, free, available, source of material and there is no possible chance of a shortage of supply - is there?

Second, in creating a plant to utilise and adapt this huge and continuous source of refuse the local authority could create a number of jobs as well as reduce the tyre-mountains and the needs for landfills, reduce the noise factor on our roads, and - who knows - improve the environment in which we live and maybe sell road surfacing to other local authorities!

However it does require initiative - and some investment - but surely, if we can afford £840,000 a year for the new county council cabinet administration - and who knows what as yet for the Wycombe District Council set-up - then isn't an investment in a sound-reducing, job-creating, waste-absorbing, possibly profitable, civic proposition of much more benefit to both concerned and afflicted residents and motorists?

Surely it is not beyond the capability of the district council to create such a business?

It would reduce the cost of road-surfacing, reduce noise for both motorists and house-dwellers, create jobs, and reduce the need for landfill sites - so what is stopping the council doing it other than phlegmatic civic apathy?

Bill Purdie, West Street, Marlow