Potholes and private education may be interlinked beyond belief

Providing an assurance that he did not want to make road repairs a ‘class issue’, Iain Robertson has reached a conclusion that high-end sporting endeavours can turn a chap’s eye away from the realities of everyday life, just ask Boris and cronies.

Being a particular fan of irony and, more specifically, political irony has led me to a partial understanding about the atrocious condition of our nation’s roadways. Thus, I ask that you contemplate the make-up of our political elite, where almost half of the House of Lords consists of former pupils of what is termed commonly ‘the most famous school in the world’, Eton. A brief sniff around parliament today will reveal that it has also become a haven for Old Etonians.

My parents despatched me to a very fine Scottish academy, when I was but ten years of age. I was a bright child and became the school ‘dux’ in my first year. It was an educational pattern that I carried through my school years, as much because I resented being at that ruddy school, as I truly resented my parents. Among my more disruptive practices was once ‘stealing’ all of the masters’ tawse (a primitive leather punishment medium that some of the teaching profession used to relish applying) and burying them in a gully just off our customary cross-country running route over the Ochil Hills. This led to a sales peak at the premises of John J Dick Leathergoods, of Lochgelly, as several of the masters rushed to buy replacements. An admission might have earned commission, had the thought occurred.

Perhaps unwittingly I had become an early poster-boy for the privately educated individual desiring to be as great an object of humour as a ‘street kid’, instead of being posh. It was revealed in 2018 that a distinct cachet was attached to Eton schoolboys that preferred to be ‘common’ by calling themselves ‘Streetonians’. Believe me, my alma mater, despite insisting that all accents had to be neutralised, was nowhere near as posh as Eton.

As a car fanatic, I was never a ball sports aficionado. Even today, the rules of football bamboozle me as much as cricket; as soon as I could, I managed to avoid them. However, it never stopped the more enthusiastic of our teachers urging me to try mountaineering, skiing and archery (although some of them realised that giving me a bow and arrows was tantamount to handing a Highland Cow a blunderbuss). Another of the seemingly endless list of pastimes was potholing. This is where I feel that some of the Old Etonians may have become somewhat blindsided. Even the mention of a pothole seems to infer something mildly psychosexual and definitely cloistered. You need not feign horror at the suggestion, especially if you, as parents, sent your children away to school…psychosexuality is par for the course!

When that swivel-eyed Chancellor of the Exchequer in Cameron’s government, George Osborne, made his fateful statement about returning the emphasis of Vehicle Excise Duty back to Road Tax, while hope may have existed, it would be fair to state that it was another example of words being more vital than actions. Concerned about losing votes to the shifty left, ‘potholes’ were elevated suddenly into mainstream consciousness. Osborne assured the nation that ‘road tax’ meant what it said and potholes would be repaired. Pah!

Having wounded public services fatally, when the twerp found himself in 2016 seeking employment beyond his one-day-a-week £650,000 role with BlackRock, he had managed to ignore completely his promises. Mind you, he was an ex-St Paul’s pupil, although he was also a member of Oxford University’s Bullingdon Club, where porcine exploits do appear to be rife. Yet, what a chap does in the cloisters is surely his personal business. Oink-oink.

It is time for some figures (obtained from a 2020 survey):

• Excluding London, English local authorities paid out £6.6m in road compensation, of which 81% was pothole-related.
• London paid out £1.2m, of which 31% was pothole-related.
• Welsh local authorities paid out £330,000, of which 57% was pothole-related.

Around 32% of UK drivers (surveyed by Citroen UK, in March 2021) admitted that their vehicles had been damaged by potholes. Although the average repair bill was for £142, around 11% of drivers reported that they forked out in excess of £250 for repairs ranging from inside rim wheel damage, severely cut tyre sidewalls, bent suspension arms, damaged engine mounts, buckled and unbalanced wheels. It will come as no surprise that a reported 42% of drivers wanted better suspension systems on their vehicles that might be more resilient to damage, a factor that Citroen assures us its ‘advanced comfort’ springs and dampers can handle. Yes. Of course they can.

According to the most recent Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) report, a pothole is filled every 21secs in England and Wales combined. However, it also highlights that around 9% of the roads network is in such a poor state of repair that something grander than mere maintenance is going to be needed within the next 12 months. With local authorities facing a fall in their funding to the tune of £826.6m this year, perhaps you can comprehend why truly little action has been taking place. It would seem that the report is named aptly.

However, ‘fill-and-dress’ is no longer appropriate. Most of these faux repairs last a week at best but the ensuing damage could and does cause road traffic incidents, some of which are fatal. We all accept that the pandemic has been an immense drain on the nation’s available resources but turning a blind eye to what is a basic expectation of good quality roads, which the ratepayer is already funding, while Boris and chums fritter away the cash on a new and costly press office at Downing Street, let alone myriad fanciful vanity projects, is simply unacceptable.

I urge all ‘Streetonians’ to don their navvy’s overalls and set to fixing what is the problem-that-never-goes-away, potholes, and not to turn a studious eye away from the bleedin’ obvious. The alternative is that British road-users cease paying Road Tax until positive action is taken! However, if your vehicle is damaged, take photographs and make a claim against your local Roads/Highways Department.