Call to abolish Herts Highways‏

1.36.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 22nd Apr 2009

Hertfordshire Liberal Democrats have today called for the outright abolition of Herts Highways, the public-private partnership which is responsible for maintaining the county's roads and pavements.

County Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst, the Liberal Democrat Environment spokesperson, said: "It has been clear from some years that local residents have become sick and tired of the poor deal they get from their money when it comes to the maintenance of roads and pavements."It is obvious from mine and other councillors' post bags that the dreadful state of our highways and pavements combined with the failure to do maintenance work jobs properly is the number one issue with residents.

"At least this year residents can pass judgement on the Conservatives management of our highways when they vote in the county elections on 4 June."

He added: "I want to be clear: if the Liberal Democrats win control of the county council on 4 June we will start the process of breaking up the current arrangement so as to make work on highways more accountable to local residents and more reactive to the real world.

"I and my colleagues no longer believe that Herts Highways in its current form is working for the benefit of Hertfordshire residents. The current arrangements allow the private sector in effect to write itself cheques: the private sector plans the work, dream up expensive safety schemes - many of which have to be re

done - and monitors the work of other private contractors.

"Local people and their councillors have precious little say. Indeed the current arrangements mean that residents and councillors are effectively ignored when they want schemes to happen like 20 mph limits and ignored when they want money-wasting schemes NOT to happen. There is almost no local accountability and just recently the Conservative Administration has cut the number of front line staff delivering on our streets.

"No-one would employ someone to decorate their house and then ask a second decorator to check whether the first was doing it properly. They would expect to have the right to check performance themselves.

"When it comes to public money, it is public servants, answerable directly to councillors and the public, who should be doing the planning, checking and monitoring."

Stephen also commented on the recent row over the highways budget: "We recently proposed extra funding for pavement repairs, upping it by

£1m because the county has allowed for just under £4m to be spent in this area

this year - just 16% of its maintainable budget. We also proposed a pro active pothole repair service - not just waiting for them to be reported by the public - thus potentially saving the council money in the long term as well as extra drainage works to prevent flooding.

"All of this was rejected by the Conservatives who seem unwilling to accept any criticism of their highways plans. It's time to end the current arrangements which means only senior managers in private companies and Herts Highways get to decide where the money is spent rather than the people who pay the council tax."