Dear Editor,

When I was growing up in the seventies, I remember seeing the road-gangs repairing potholes. They always cut a square out with a pneumatic jack-hammer so as to cover the irregular shape and to be sure of sealing it. These days the repairers throw some hot tarmac in, tap it down and go.

There was an article in a recent Gazette entitled "Robust Pothole Repair Plans" (this information about the plans to repair local roads by Balfour Beatty was supplied by Herefordshire Council).

Look at the repair outside our library - what looked like the start of a sink-hole needs cutting up and levelling properly. As it stands it will only create a puddle that will freeze / melt and break up.

Balfour Beatty will come along again, throw some more tarmac in and claim "Robust Pothole Repair".

We are being robbed - the more funds we win for the county, the less they seem to do. Does anybody actually check the repairs?

Everybody I talk to in Ross laugh at how little effort is put into the actual repairs of potholes.

As ever, when asked for a reply from Balfour Beatty there will be no-one available to make comment; which says everything!

Brian McCormac

Ross-on-Wye