Preserve us now!

8:00am Saturday 27th September 2008

GOOD news that councillors and council officers alike are training to ride bicycles (Hereford Times, September 18).

May I suggest that they now all get out on their bikes to see first-hand and up close the appalling state of the county’s roads.

As someone who cycles several thousand miles a year around Herefordshire, I am dismayed at the unchecked decline in the condition of our roads and the obvious lack of any planned maintenance.

At best, most roads are uncomfortable to cycle on and, at worst, are dangerous, particularly when potholes are concealed by water.

Can they also make a note of all the blocked road gullies? They’re easy to spot by the grass growing out of them and have undoubtedly contributed to localised flooding. I know of some on A roads that haven’t been cleared for several years.

What little maintenance is done is to such a dismal standard that it is just a waste of our money; throwing a shovel full of tarmac in the direction of a hole from a slow moving lorry does not a good repair make.

Perhaps the tarmac used to ‘preserve for future generations’ the Rotherwas Ribbon would have been better used preserving existing roads for this generation.

TIM FORD, Grove Road, Hereford.

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