Disappointed

A busy duel carriage forms one of the borders of our ward. This road has seen some serious accidents over the years. In the past few weeks there were two bad accidents at the junction with another major road which runs through our ward. Recently I have been at two meetings where councillors have been present that safety on this road has been raised. One meeting a group wants to start a petition to get improvements to the junction. Our councillors did what I have now come to expect: said, it should not be a political issue, we’ll help with the wording of your petition but sorry we can’t help. At the second meeting I overheard two councillors discussing the issue. I don’t want to report what I think was said but they think that whatever we do we will not change the minds of our highways dept. Traffic lights have been discussed but it was said that speeds on the down hill section of the duel carriageway approaching the junction would make having lights more dangerous. During recent gas main works lights were placed at this junction with no accidents occurring. Once again I feel that this is an issue that needs leadership that we are not getting. It is no wonder that the electorate is complacent when we see this happening and feel helpless to do anything about it. Do we have to wait until the slaughter on this road becomes an issue before someone does something about it? In the meantime I will be supporting the good folks to organise their petition and let’s hope we get improvements before anyone else is killed.
Since I started to take an interest in local politics and since I started this blog I have been asking myself more and more why we need councillors. We have three per ward and as far as I can see there’s only one job. There was talk awhile back that the number would be reduced to one super councillor per ward. Perhaps if it became a full time job and was paid properly we might get better results. This is disappointed of Newton ward returning you to the information super highway. I’m sure we will be hearing a lot more on this issue.