I have every sympathy with those who will be disrupted while minor repairs, taking up to seven weeks, are carried out on Gote Bridge, Cockermouth. However, the timing, length of work and lack of communications, is no great surprise.
With local authority funding under stress, the county council will, no doubt, wish to keep costs on any repairs to a minimum but the financial situation does not excuse the rank bad management of Cumbria Highways we have come to expect.
In recent months we have seen the extended closure of the B5300 at Dubmill Point which resulted in locals just trying to go about their business using unofficial diversion routes. Cumbria Highways’ response was to call in the cops to deal with a situation that was of their making when simple traffic lights would have been less disruptive.
Then we have the “temporary” traffic lights on the A596 at Heathfield Railway Bridge which have now celebrated six months in place without any sign of work being commenced. In this case, Cumbria Highways conveniently blames Connect Roads, who are responsible for the upkeep of the A596.
In terms of this subcontracting, I am sure it is worth reminding council taxpayers that a previous relationship with a contractor ended with a £21million loss for Cumbria County Council and, in any case, signing over the day-to-day responsibility for a road does not exempt the principle from their responsibility to the taxpayer. After all, I pay my council tax to Cumbria, not to Connect Roads.
At least the published diversion via Lamplugh Road will take motorists passed an albeit very expensive filling station – drivers will need additional fill-ups!
Ashley Tiffen
High Scales, Aspatria