The Market Street Cobbles Fiasco - Steam is rising and beginning to escape from my ears

The contractors leave with the job only half done only to come back next year to inflict more disruption. This and the cost to the tax payer for  a questionable solution, need never have happened. Furthermore there are projects that the town really needs are under real threat - the face to face Citizens Advice Bureau comes top of my list.

I suspect the bill to the taxplayer is approaching half a million pounds and the disruption to trade enormous. Not a penny of this money need have been spent and  the repair of the small level of damage to the cobbles  could have been done unobtrusively.

The Amey contractors have admitted here on film that the work they were doing didn't need doing; the cobbles they were digging up were perfectly sound.

This is the result of incompetent councillors starting with Wendy Kolby who was the Labour Party County Councillor for over twenty years. She did not supervise the arrogant Nick Raymond who was the Cumbria County Department of chief for this area until recently when he was at last moved sideways. Politicians conveniently forget that they are in fact the employers of our civil servants.

The Cobbles down Market Street would never have needed repair if it had not been for the fact that contractors accessing the services under the road were allowed to repair the cobbles without supervision by the Highways Department resulting in subsidence due to poor workmanship.

This was glaringly true when United Utilities replaced a water main all the way down Market Street in 2006 leaving appauling damage to the road surface in some fifteen places.

When tackled at the top of the company United Utilites admitted that they were at fault paying me £25 for raising the matter and agreed to return and repair the poor work. This still left all the other damage caused by unsupervised contractors acting on behalf of gas, electricity and previous water and drains access. Work allowed to be badly done by Nick Raymond's department.

Work subsequently done by United Utilites opposite the West. Gaz. office was of an excellent standard demonstrating that effective repairs could be carried out when done by a responsible contractor.

Instead of small scale repairs being done, the Highways Department were allowed to start a complete resurfacing of Market Street and the resulting chaos has resulted.

Now we should expect James Airey and Peter Hornby, our County Councillors, to sort this mess out. Again their poor supervision of what the Highways Department do is to blame.

It is time that politicians take responsibility for their workforce - the council often with top salaries over £150,000/year -  rather than posturing in front of the public and doing very little.

Why do we the public continue to elect them?