Dear Editor,

The letter (Basingstoke Gazette 29th June) from Cllr Nick Adams-King about dealing with potholes was most welcome. He writes of how higher funding and increased productivity through a more sensible approach to tackling repairs will raise the presently appalling standard of road maintenance. These are interventions that are long overdue. Writing this from home by an open window I constantly hear the crash of lorries and buses as they drive over the deeply cracked and sunken drain covers on both sides of the B3440 - unable to avoid them because of the traffic island. It's been like this for months during which time the B3440 has been closed twice for repairs at Newfound, just a short step away!

I try not to be cynical but can’t help thinking that this sudden attention to road maintenance is simply a reaction to the recent election defeat for the Conservatives. Previous to that I received little interest from the elected officials to whom I wrote about repairs. There was sympathy but no action. All I got was handwringing and an appeal for understanding in difficult economic circumstances - neither of which is good enough. Councillors and County Councillors should be looking for solutions and exploring radical ideas and a Conservative County Council should be arm-twisting resources from a Conservative government and holding it to account.

Certainly, we in Basingstoke held the Conservatives to account! In my view they paid for their dysfunctional governance of our public realm where driving demands the skills of the slalom and civic space is blighted by litter, graffiti and neglect. Do any Councillors stand at the bus stop by the railway station amidst the butt ends of cigarettes discarded long ago or look up at the entrance to The Malls to see the green slime wrapped around the structural support? Have they ever winced in a bus as it monotonously crashes over every sunken drain on Churchill Way or been tossed like a cork in a storm when it pulls into the stop by Chiltern Way where the road edge is severely cracked? Have they ever driven along Roman Way or Kempshott Lane where utility contractors have left trenches to flatten tyres and jar teeth? Have they any Pride in Our Place?

They were fine words from Cllr Adams-King and I hope he is sincere. We shall see.

Alan Gwyer, Worting, Basingstoke

 

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