Follow up letter to the Westmorland Gazette

On the subject of the South Lakes Highways Department:

Dear Sir,

Your report last week, though very welcome, described only the tip of the iceberg.

First , the size of the problem. One photograph of one group of totally dislodged setts fails to convey the fact that in a stretch of 50 yards there are 81 loose setts in 15 different places. Three of these have 13 to 21 grouped together. Furthermore this is not new. The problem started eighteen months ago and was first reported to Cllr Airey in June 2009 , then again in August with the attached photos, a site meeting followed in September 2009. Nothing happened and the state of the setts became increasingly worse. A further site meeting with Cllr Airey took place on June 7th 2010. It was only when a video demonstrating the enormity of the problem was placed on Youtube on July 9th did anything appear to happen.

Second, the behaviour of a dysfunctional Cumbria County Council. They are a law unto themselves. They ignore the guidelines set down by the Department of Transport; their elected bosses the County Councillors; other SLDC councillors and requests from Ulverston Town Council as well as those from the Plebs , the members of the public.

This is because the executive are firmly in charge and unresponsive to anyone. The program "Yes, Minister" illustrates the situation well. The Chief executive earns £170,000 with six below her having salaries that add up to £733,000 . At this rate the totals for the next two tiers where the head of our Highways Department is to be found must add up to a figure in the region of another £3 to 4 million, all for bureaucracy.

Some of these people appear to be totally unresponsive to criticism particularly in our Highways Department. Maria Fallon, salary £125,000, the corporate director responsible for running the county's roads and highways, amongst other things has some work to do in sorting out her staff.

In 2006 when a new water main with some ten openings in the road was laid down Market Street, there was an outcry from people on every level Town Council to County Cllrs, as well as members of the public at the shockingly low standard of the work done in replacing the cobbles.

The Highways totally ignored the protests even when they were responsible for overseeing the work. They are hand in glove with Capita of the private sector and cosy up to them in the same office. How can this work without corruption and mismanagement?

It was only when an employee of United Utilities and myself started to chase this up nearly three years later that United Utilities came to examine the work and admitted that their work was far below the standards they find acceptable. They then returned and repaired all their mistakes over the full length of the street, even though legally they were not obliged to do so.

What is the difference?

United Utilities have a reputation to maintain. The County Council do not. The last time they were appraised by the Audit Commission in 2008 Cumbria CC were in the bottom 20% in the country. Since then the independent Audit Commission has been disbanded. They were to embarrassing to local government.

For over a year we in The Gill have had to stand by and watch what is potentially a dangerous situation getting worse as our Council behaves irresponsibly.

In the future we will tolerate this situation no longer. People are getting hurt in some cases severely. We will maintain the highway to our own standards which will be a lot safer that those of the county. They can take us to court if they wish, the threat of insurance claims doesn't bother us as we will only be doing work to a high standard and there will be no claims. This is a myth spread by insurance companies. With the present appalling conditions maintained by the county - there are no claims . Why should there be any in the future with superior workmanship?

There have been no complaints from either the public or the county to my illegal work on the highway in Lower Brook Street roughly a year ago.

On the subject of cobbles versus tarmac, the latter is fine as long as the surface is not broken but repairing potholes in tarmac quickly leads to more potholes. Cobbles can be fixed to last almost indefinitely if done well, the trouble is that many contractors do a poor job giving cobbles a bad name.

Dr Geoff Dellow

Qualified Engineer.