How do others manage?

I read with interest your report about the pothole problems experienced by one of your readers at Northchapel and her comments about the performance of West Sussex County Council.

We are long-term residents in Redford/woolbeding and we, too, have had to contend for many years with WSCC’S patching-up response to a problem which deserves a far more rigorous approach.

Put simply, all the public highways which comprise the primary approaches to our residential area are in a very poor state of general repair, and have been so for many years.

I noted from your report that a spokesperson for WSCC accepts that WSCC has ‘a duty to take reasonable steps to maintain our highway network’.

As a lawyer, I am pleased to note this acceptance of a clear legal duty of care. I fear one problem is that the WSCC’S current approach does not take sufficiently into account the very great increase in the volume and literal weight of traffic which has developed over the last 30 years or so.

That increase undoubtedly requires a better maintenance programme than the current policy which is essentially to perform an endless succession of low-grade repairs as and when damage is reported.

The surfaces of many of the roads, particularly in the northern part of the WSCC area of responsibility, require replacing. Surely proper repair would eventually prove cheaper in the long term.

Inevitably WSCC argues, doubtless with some justification, that it is currently very strapped for cash, and has a burgeoning social care problem to face.

But our experience is that other county councils (East Hampshire in particular) in southern England seem to be making a better job of looking after their roads.

One is left wondering how they manage to do it. DAVIDREYNOLDS

Woolbeding