Gavin Robinson, MP for East Belfast, the other took to Facebook on behalf of his many constituents left literally deflated, well their car tyres, by the multiple pot-holes plaguing his electoral patch.
He noted that “DfI’s road maintenance has shifted to a ‘safety-only’ approach”, and that “defects are often left untreated until they reach higher intervention thresholds”.
He continued with, “What was intended to be an emergency position has quietly become the default” and that the resulting damage to road users’ vehicles is “the predictable outcome of a system that relies on temporary fixes instead of permanent repairs”.
On reading this today, I realised that we, the electorate of the NI Assembly, are suffering the side-effects of Sam Vimes “boots theory”, a term coined by writer Terry Pratchett.
The theory goes something like this _ you need new boots but you have limited disposable income. You know that it makes sense to buy an expensive pair that will last years but can only afford a pair that will only last a season. The result is that, over time, buying a cheaper pair of boots every year costs you much more, than the one pair of expensive boots that would last for years. In a nutshell, it is very expensive to be cheap.
So back to pot-holes. Is this what DfI are doing? are they making ‘safety-only’ repairs that will need made repeatedly, instead of paying once for a repair that will last longer than a wet winter? are DfI allocating their budget as if they were a financially strapped person, needing a new pair of boots?
Does every department do this? Knowing that elections are coming again, as elections always come around again, are departmental budgets being spent on a pair of boots that will only last until our votes have been cast and a new pair of boots will be needed again once the new MLAs walk in the door?
MP Robinson is going to be “taking these challenges (the pot-holes) to the door of the Minister”. But what are we going to do? Are we going to ask our MLAs to start spending smarter, to stop buying cheap boots that don’t last?
Discover more from Slugger O'Toole
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
