I’ve been knocking on doors and talking to hundreds of people. To me it’s an important part of being a local councillor. I need to know what issues matter to you most. It’ll be no surprise to hear potholes and the general state of our roads is the most common complaint. The county has been throwing more money at the issue, but the roads just seem to be getting worse.

Bring road maintenance back in-house

The road maintenance contract is up for renewal. Now is the time to bring it back in house. The cross-party scrutiny committee overwhelmingly recommended this course of action. However, the cabinet, led by senior officers, decided to press on with what we had before. For a system that was obviously failing, to just continue seems the wrong thing to do. For whatever reasons the contract has not delivered.

As we found with the waste collection at South Hams, if you outsource one of your core services you lose control of it. You end up arguing about the rights and wrongs of the contract rather than just getting the job done. We also seem to have lost sight of a pro-active approach. Prevention is better than cure, the saying goes. As the County Council has steadily removed or down-graded routine parish maintenance, so too has the state of our roads declined. I’m sure the two are related.

Bring back the parish lengthsman

Many parishes have taken matters into their own hands. They are employing contractors to carry out the services county used to fulfil. I applaud this positive approach. It could be argued these services should be covered by council tax and it’s a fair point. The trouble is successive governments have stripped local authorities of money. Of course, things can always be done more efficiently but the financial challenges have been immense.

The disappointing thing has been the county’s failure to engage or work with the parishes and towns. On many occasions parishes have been prepared to fund projects their local residents want, but the highways department has been at best unco-operative and at worse downright obstructive. This attitude has got to change. In fact, this kind of high-handed, dismissive approach across the whole county council needs to end. If the county is going to deliver the services we deserve, then it needs to start working with partners in a constructive way.

Unsettled

People also tell me how everything seems very unsettling at the moment. From the very human tragedies of Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and other conflicts around the world, the turmoil of tariffs almost feels like light relief. If President Trump fails in his attempt to secure a third term, he could always pursue a career as a stand-up comic. When he speaks, I want to laugh out loud. If only it wasn’t all so serious. It does put things into to perspective and everyday it reminds me how lucky I am to live in such a wonderful part of the world.

Especially now Spring is here, we have all the benefits of our stunning natural environment. Sheltered from the hustle and bustle of the world outside, we live in an oasis of calmness. As a politician, I see this good fortune, not as an excuse for complacency, but an opportunity. It is a sense of responsibility to not only work as hard as I can for our communities, but also to strive to find solutions, in my own small way, to the bigger issues we face. I suppose, like most of us, I just want to leave things better than they were before.