Published at 07:40, Wednesday, 30 January 2013

COUN. Horncastle is right to warn that Tynedale’s by-roads are ‘almost beyond redemption’.

He is wrong to say that the council cannot get out of the habit of cutting the highways budget. He implies there is a choice. Exactly which budgets does he suggest should be cut? National Governments pride themselves on denigrating councils, and forcing budget cuts upon them.

It began with the Tories, continued under New Labour, and the current lot continue the ‘tradition’ with renewed vigour, not to say glee.

The appointment of ‘professional’ managers in the last couple of decades has resulted in ‘waste’ being defined by people who know little about the works that they ultimately supervise.

Thus, taking the small example of gully clearing, ‘waste’ means having an experienced team of road-cleaners going round the district in a regular routine, and cleaning the gullies ‘whether they need it or not’.

So you cut that ‘waste’, and have gullies cleaned only on request – and you actually get credit for doing that!

So gullies are not cleaned, roads flood, the detritus scours the road, the potholes appear, the gullies are further choked with detritus scoured from the cheap ‘road patching’ ... and you get a whole system of roads which is on its way back to the Middle Ages: and it is national Government which is to blame.

I would like to know what our MP thinks about this ... but of course he will blandly toe his Party Line, and -- like most of the unthinking public ‘Blame the Council’.

JOHN LAW,

Hexha

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk