Hard-earned cash thrown down the drain

TO be honest, I can’t see much difference between the political parties at local level in terms of service delivery, despite the fact that each has its pet topics and priorities.

The one responsibility they all share however is to spend our money effectively and most certainly not waste it, regardless of where it has come from. But who checks that this is the case? The answer appears to be nobody.

Just a few years ago LCC spent £6.5m provided from Westminster specifically to reduce traffic congestion and promote cycling – this was the project responsible for the painted “virtual” cycle lanes and speed cushion/ tables. Has it achieved its objective? You can judge for yourself – certainly I’ve not come across anyone who has noticed the slightest improvement.

This is not too surprising as, despite the obvious need to do something to avoid gridlock, the project was poorly researched and the solution was “off the shelf” just so the right boxes could be ticked.

Given the waste of such a large sum of money, you’d think that the culprits would at least be held to account, but in truth nobody is interested. The non-controlling parties are happy to rubbish their opponents’ financial acumen at election time, but this is just a means of attaining power for themselves.

However, when it comes to specific cases like this all the talk about holding politicians to account goes for a ball of chalk and nobody will take the steps necessary. It looks rather like a private club where you can call-out the opposition, but God forbid take action over anyone’s incompetence.

Now we know what they really mean when they talk about being in it together!

The worrying thing is that there is no appetite with any of the parties to change this mentality, so we can look forward to seeing even more of our hard-earned cash being thrown down the drain. T Junior