The Daily Echo 17 April 2008

Written by Sandra Gidley MP on Thu 17th Apr 2008

There is a computer game called Sim City in which aspiring town planners and politicians create a city, whilst at the same time having to balance the books. A player quickly learns that if you go too mad at the beginning the money quickly runs out. One of the ways that a player can eke out the money is by reducing the standard budget on various items. One such budget is for road repairs. The trouble is that if the road repair budget is depleted for too long then little pot holes keep springing up in the roads - which eventually fall to bits.

Driving around parts of the city recently I have felt like I am in the middle of some desperate Sim City game in which a failing player is trying to keep himself in the game. Oh, I forgot to mention - the game has citizens too and if they are not happy they start to revolt. It seems to me that some Southampton residents are approaching that state too.

It takes some time to reach this state of affairs and the trouble is that everything needs doing at once. So, any council needs to set priorities but if a desperate housewife in Wisteria Lane is unhappy with the state of her road it is little consolation that Coronation Street has been resurfaced.

It is not just a local council problem though as anyone who has driven along the M271 recently will attest (the Highways Agency is supposedly responsible for keeping that one in good repair). Some Hampshire roads are bad but there was a noticeable deterioration when I drove into Wiltshire recently.

I have never known the situation to be so bad and it did occur to me that the Echo could have quite a lot of fun trying to find the worst pothole in the city. A starter for ten would be Norham Avenue - unless you know differently……

With petrol prices so high some people I speak to have been looking at cheaper forms of transport. Cycling is one of these but badly scarred roads are a real deterrent to those considering getting on their bike. A pothole may be bad for a car's suspension but it can do real damage to a bike and its rider.

Councils at all levels and of all political persuasions seem to pay too little attention to this matter which is a bit of a shame as for many people the state of the roads is an indicator of how well the council is doing.

Published with kind permission of the Daily Echo