Edinburgh Council's big pothole blitz needs to target roads that actually need fixed! – Steve Cardownie

No sooner had the ink dried on Edinburgh Council’s £15 million spending programme on resurfacing the city’s roads when up pops a resident to point out that his road is hardly a priority for resurfacing but, as a cyclist, he could point to many others that should be.

Staying in a road that could hardly be described as a busy thoroughfare, he said: “We live in swanky Glenlockhart Valley with about 12 vehicle movements a day but it has been marked up for unnecessary repairs. We have a slightly sunken drain that doesn’t bother anyone. They should focus on the innumerable potholes around the city which are dangerous to cyclists and damaging to cars.”

Liberal Democrat councillor Kevin Lang took to the pages of this paper on Monday to loudly proclaim (well, a much as you can loudly proclaim anything in a newspaper) that the Liberal Democrat budget was responsible for funding this programme and that his party had “put fixing our roads, paths and pavements at the very top of our political priorities”.

All well and good, and not before time given that he laments that Edinburgh has “roads and pavements that more resemble the surface of the moon than that of a major global city”. As a regular road user, I can testify as to the state of our streets and welcome the Lib Dem initiative to at least make a decent start to address the problem.

Some roads are in need of repairs more than others (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

However, councillors must obviously be sure that any resurfacing programme targets those most in need of repair and should enlist the support of locals in identifying where they are – before another irate resident pops up!