As an experiment I thought I’d try posting a transcript of a conversation that took place at this week’s Town Council meeting about road resurfacing. Hopefully this way I cannot be accused of making subjective or biassed comments and you can decide for your self about the quality of support from your local ward Cllrs.

At the meeting Cllr Paul West announced that ERYC had put an additional £3m into the road resurfacing budget. The town Clerk reminded him it was for surface dressing. Cllr West hadn’t seen a list of where they had decided to do it and he wasn’t sure how far £3m goes.

This is verbatim with a bit of tidying up as there were lots of ums and errs.

BS= Barry Stockdale
CPW = Ward Cllr Paul West
PTC = Pocklington Town Clerk
PP = Pocklington Town Cllr Pam Powell

BS. Great to hear about the £3m for road surfacing. What have you done to make sure Pocklington gets its share.
CPW. In terms of what we can do, the way they work is need based and there is a priority list. Certain categories were it hits a threshold. To be equitable that is something the officers decide as they are the professional people who evaluate these things really.
BS. So, none of our ward cllrs have fought for Pocklington roads to be repaired.
CPW. Well when there are potholes in the road and I see them I report them as everyone else can do.
BS But you were specifically talking about resurfacing not potholes.
CPW Well if we see that there’s something there we can ask for that.
BS Is there anything which you think is worthy of being resurfaced?
CPW. Well off top of me head I’m sure there are but I can’t think of any.
PTC. I have seen the forward plan when we had liaison meetings. West Green is down for (top dressing) the next financial year. Market Place and Market Street are the next financial year and the Mile is the one after. Primarily Pocklington won’t get much in the way of surface dressing because we don’t have that many roads that get surface dressed. It’s mostly the tiny rural roads that get the surface dressing – the ones with all the chips.
PP. So Market Place isn’t going to be done in 23/24
PTC. Yes
PP. I don’t know how cars are going to drive down there.
CPW. Yes you’re right we have flagged that up.
PTC. I flagged it up with the officers and said that seems wrong to me to do West Green which wasn’t done that long ago
PP. Market Place is appalling.
CPW. We do flag all these up.
BS. But you just said you hadn’t.
CPW. When we are aware of things we do tell people that they could do with attention. Unfortunately we’re not the ones who make the decisions. There are professional people who use the matrix’s that they’ve got and were the need is greater. That’s how it goes.
PP. If we think that something like the Market Place is deteriorating badly who should we discuss it with. Because what I can see it must have deteriorated more than expected. It’s so bad.
CPW. Yes well there’s the highways team we could ask
PP. Could you try please.
CPW. Yeah Gordon’s met the local engineer and it can be quite difficult.
PTC. It’s budgets more than anything else

So there you have it. Word for word without the silences and ums and ers.