With our roads littered with potholes and our footways unsafe, readers may be surprised to hear that Conservative-controlled Essex County Council has £986,000 of underspend on road and footway maintenance across the county, as seen at the last cabinet meeting.

Abbots Road, Butt Road, Military Road, East Street; just a few roads I can name that need urgent attention, while footpaths around the town centre are still a shambles, despite me reporting time and again as the county councillor for the town centre.

Now we know why.

The county blames Covid-19 for the huge underspend, but considering most of the workers are sub-contracted, work outside and have been able to work since May, this does not add up.

Add this to the fact that traffic has been down significantly for a large portion of spring and early summer and you have to wonder what type of condition the roads would be in now if they had the normal traffic of our pre-Covid days.

Once again Colchester is left behind by Essex County Council as pedestrians, cyclists and drivers are expected to deal with unsafe footpaths and potholes that cause cars and cyclists to either swerve erratically or damage their vehicle or bike.

For a council that claims to want to get “Essex Moving”, failures on repairs on main routes and shambolic projects like Ipswich Road are completely counter-productive to this aim.

As residents of Colchester we want one simple thing, our roads and footpaths repaired.

Councillor Lee Scordis

Labour County Councillor for Abbey Division

Haddon Park, Colchester

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