The weather has once again generated ‘Britain in crisis’ headlines, particularly in relation to the suggestion that some councils were running out of salt.
Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis has attempted to semi-nationalise the control of salt, though in his kindly and boffin-like way has made the takeover seem less nasty than many of his colleagues might have done.
Once the snow melts, as it will, there will be the problem of the battered condition of the roads. Britain may have talent, but it will soon also have thousands of new potholes. These potholes will appear at precisely the moment capital spending for highways and pretty well everything else within the public sector is chopped severely.
Chancellor Alistair Darling has already announced a 50% + reduction in public sector capital spending from 2011/12. You can be sure that zealous civil servants and council finance officers will want to start reducing spending on capital as soon as possible. The trouble is, potholes are highly-visible and potentially dangerous. Even road-haters agree that cyclists and pedestrians need to be protected from dodgy road surfaces.
So how will Lord Adonis respond to the apparently contradictory pressures to fill in the newly-developed holes in roads while at the same time cutting spending on highways? He should point out that the deep cuts have not yet commenced and that, anyway, local roads are the kind of infrastructure that people notice.
‘Pavement politics’ remains a powerful force. If the public sees cuts in highways at a time when the weather has damaged them, there may be electoral consequences. Jack Frost is yet another impediment to the neat process of spending cuts that both government and Opposition members hope may lie ahead. The weather is a reminder of how councils and other parts of the public sector can be resilient only if they are reasonably funded. Higher taxes anyone?
