HOWARD Price (letters SNJ, May 13 ‘Upkeep of roads is out of reach) is accurate in his assessment of GCC’s neglect of the county’s roads.

I noticed in January this year (SNJ Jan 7, news report) that: ‘Pothole menace set to be fought by a funding boost’.

This was to be achieved by an investment of £847million spent on improving local roads over the next six years and was announced by the transport secretary Patrick McCloughlin.

In his estimation, this amounted to a spend of £141million a year on pothole repair.

This would seem to be smoke and mirrors.

In a local paper dated January 18, 2008, Gloucestershire County Council reported its ‘Cash-strapped highways department does not have the money to find long-term solutions’.

So as little, if any, improvement has been made since that time (and probably before) the money announced by Mr McLoughlin does not stretch for six years but for the period 2008 until now - 2015; (then add the next six years) and this makes a period of 14 years, and the annual spend then amounts to £60million pa.

Quite a difference.

Mr Price’s letter then further alludes to a problem that GCC seems unaware of or ignores (although Mr Price has tried to bring attention to it to their attention) and that is the sreason for many potholes being formed – blocked drains.

GCC and Amey seem unaware that water falling on road surfaces and then being driven on by traffic is destructive to those road surfaces -– it makes them crumble and hence we have potholes.

GCC/Amey do little, if anything, to combat this cause.

If water cannot drain away, it remains on the road surface.

Mr Price gives examples of blocked drains on the A46, but let me give examples that are frankly outrageous and point to GCC’s seemingly complete disinterest in the problem.

Or maybe it’s Stroud that’s at fault.

To see this ‘show,’ citizens need only walk along Beeches Green, which has an abominable surface.

Then as a lunchtime diversion, they might count the drain covers that are blocked – not just with a little detritus but ‘blocked’, as in “Cor, it looks like they’ve been concreted over”.

These drains – six at my last count – would appear to have had no attention whatsoever since they were installed.

This surely is basic maintenance.

There are others – one just along from the Conservative Club towards Waitrose and another in Butt Street, Minchinhampton.

No doubt, with this prevalence, readers may have their favourites.

How strange that no ‘Green-minded’ residence has noticed this.

Anyone walking along Beeches Green (as Greens would tend to, ie walking not driving), particularly during the rainy season, would realise the existence of the problem because one tends to get soaked by the spray from passing vehicles as they hit the potholes and... you get the picture.

It’s mildly amusing to think that the 20mph ‘speed decals’ have been painted on the road surface in Beeches Green but the pothole problem there has been almost (almost) ignored.

If the council of any stripe intends to do anything about this problem, they should be aware that some drains only show that they are blocked when rain falls (as opposed to those that need a pneumatic drill taken to them).

Attention to this detail would be cost effective many times over I would think.

Even though I am a Ukip supporter, I would love to see Beeches Green green again.

We, too, (surprise!) are considerate of our environment.

That said, pothole fixing is a complete cop-out – what we citizens, apparently living in the fifth richest country on earth should be pushing for is complete re-surfacing.

Roger Gough

Minchinhampton