CYCLING around the potholes along the Cowley Road recently, admiring that prevalent new art form that should be called ‘Impressionist road marking’, it occurred to me that the powers that be are no longer treating our road system as sustainable.

If the current Coalition Government’s cuts are followed by cuts under the next Government, then the fragmented state of our roads and eroded state of our road markings will become far worse. A single bad winter could do fundamental damage to the kind of patchwork repairs done to roads at present, and make many potholes far worse.

We have a group of political parties committed to spending cuts which mean elementary things that we should be able to take for granted are simply not being done.

The deep commitment of some political parties to maintain low taxes, especially for the richest households, is wrecking our road system for all users.

Couple this with undermining essential spending on the NHS, the environment and education, and we are witnessing a kind of ‘manufacturing of poverty’ in a comparatively rich country which has a variety of low taxes, access to tax havens and easy tax regimes for corporations that are very much against the common good. And I don’t care for the effects I feel through my saddle either.

Steve Dawe

County Press Officer

Oxfordshire Green Party

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Today’s letters