HEATED questions were launched at officers of Dorset County Council’s transport department at a meeting to discuss one of Weymouth’s busiest roads.

The meeting brought residents of the Boot Hill area and Dorset County Councillor’s together in the Old Town Hall this evening (Tuesday).

It was a follow up meeting to one held in December to discuss concerns over air and noise pollution and control over the quantities of traffic on Boot Hill.

One of the main issues raised was the air pollution monitoring device on top of Boot Hill which had been found to be inactive for nine months following a fault.

Green Party campaign organiser Caz Dennett chaired the meeting and reported the answers she had received about why the broken piece of equipment was allowed to remain inactive when it was intended to be providing essential information about potentially damaging fumes on the road.

She said: “We weren’t told that it was out of order for nine consecutive months.

“The air quality monitoring machine does have a service contract.

“However, the air conditioning in the device to stop it from overheating does not.

“This broke down and the machine overheated.

“I asked why it was not then repaired and though the county council did know it was broken.

“The cost of repair was £12,000 and it took a long time for a decision to be made.”

The data recorded by the machine, when it was working, will be released at the end of March or the beginning of April, though further worries were raised about whether it was in the right place.

Attendees at the meeting questioned whether the top of the hill was the right place, as toxic fumes from traffic were more likely to be found at the bottom.

Officers present at the meeting were asked about how they planned to ease traffic in the area.

Kerry Stone, who works for Dorset County Council’s highways department said: “We are going to change the sequence of the lights at the Harbour Junction.

“We are hopeful that this change will help traffic disperse more quickly.”

In response to what they intended to do at the Boot Hill Junction, the officers conceded that there were no plans to alter the lights at the top of the hill to influence traffic.

A man present at the meeting who did not wished to be named said: “The only solution, the only way we’re going to solve this is to build a Western relief road.

“If Portland build their Jurassic tourist attraction then there are going to be more cars.

“Unless we put that relief road in place then you might as well sit here and forget it.”

Councillor for Rodwell, Clare Sutton pledged when she was elected last year to do what she could to help congestion on Boot Hill.

At the meeting, she said: “It’s a very difficult problem.

“I don’t think we should be pretending that there’s a magic solution.

“There must be things we can do that are relatively low cost.

“For example planting trees which has been thought to cut up to 40 per cent of air pollution.”

Caz Dennett said at the close of the meeting: “We all keep the pressure on because there are a lot of lives at risk all of the time.

“We are three months on from the last meeting and it seems that we are in no way any further towards our goal than we were.”