10:39am Friday 29th January 2010
I HAVE never driven on the surface of the moon, but I am sure it wouldn’t be any more difficult than motoring along crater-infested Kingsmead Road in Wycombe.
This backstreet between the Marsh and Loudwater is possibly the worst for potholes in the entire county, and it’s therefore no surprise a local bus company is currently refusing to drive down there until the road is repaired.
I regularly, however, risk the welfare of my car and myself by negotiating this route during rush-hour every morning as I go to work – simply because the alternative of sitting in a jam on the London Road is even more unbearable.
And I’m pleased to learn the county council intends to repair Kingsmead plus two other specific pothole hotspots – Totteridge Lane and Cressex Road – next week as a matter of urgency.
Even I wouldn’t blame the council for the icy weather that has caused the holes to expand.
But what I simply don’t understand is why the roads are in this state in the first place. Shouldn’t they have been durable enough to avoid cracking up after a spell of inclement weather?
And, as our sister paper the Bucks Free Press has already reported, why on earth are councillors even considering a massive cut in the pothole budget for the next financial year when this kind of thing happens so often?
You may think repairing potholes isn’t as important as other council priorities and you may well be right. But the state of the roads are like the state of the rubbish collection services – they are easily-identifiable council services that are important to the public.
Year after year after depressing year, we have seen council tax rise, normally above inflation and above what we can all afford.
Most taxpayers don’t understand why they pay so much, and also don’t understand what the councils in this area actually do for them.
Councillors will tell me they do rather a lot, and they will add that the tax increases are not their fault. Central Government constantly makes Bucks rein in its spending and constantly gives too little in grant to us, according to the ruling Tory group in these parts.
But that’s still no consolation to the taxpayer of Bucks who has seen his monthly payment to the councils suddenly become a major part of his outgoings.
I worked out that council tax has gone up by around 67 per cent in a decade. Previously, it was just an irritating expense, but now it means an end to the age-old dream that paying off your mortgage will give you financial independence.
Many older people will no doubt pay more in council tax each month than they do in mortgage repayments.
Many of them will have arranged a quarter-of-a-century ago for their mortgages to end around their retirement date. The objective would have been to then be able to survive on reduced earnings and savings because there is no monthly bill to the building society to worry about.
Nowadays, these new pensioners will get little reprieve because they will still be paying through the nose for council tax. Some may even have to move to cheaper properties as a result, even though they would prefer to stay in the comfort of the homes they have already paid for outright via a lifetime of hard graft.
So after all of this, these same taxpayers deserve at least to see something for their extra cash and their extra hardship. Instead, they see their roads are in an even worse state than ever, and that their local outdoor swimming pool is closing because there is no public cash available.
Last week, we learned that the first phase of a plan called ‘Pathfinder’ had been abandoned. Its aim was to save money by sharing services run by various local authorities. But after an outlay of £1.2m it has been considered a non-runner.
So more money spent and the status quo maintained. More blame heaped on central Government while more money is set to be demanded of local residents.
We have now been bled dry by this terrible system, and yet we still can’t ride down residential roads without having our car smashed around by potholes..
Talking of the moon, it’s lucky they never put local councillors in charge of the Apollo landings.
They would have had countless committee meetings, spent bucket-loads of cash on public consultation and then declared they couldn’t send up Neil Arm- strong because of the Health and Safety risk.
Repairing all of our roads so they don’t crack up again should be one small step for council officials – but a giant step in restoring public confidence in local government.
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