You’re driving along and you are watching the road ahead – when bang! You hit a pothole. It’s a mild name for a massive hole in the road. If you’re lucky then it’s a shock whilst driving. If you’re not lucky you have a puncture or a damaged wheel, as happened to my son recently. But potholes matter for another reason – they are the “broken windows” of our Council. Years ago, the “broken window” theory of community policing took hold. This said that if police ignored low level crime – kids breaking windows on old buildings and other antisocial behaviour – this led to higher level crime as people did not think policing was going to make a difference to their area.
Potholes are the broken windows of local government. Our Councils do many very difficult things – child protection, adult social care, hospital patient support, planning control, development, long term infrastructure, business development amongst them. They make all of government function. At the other end of this story is potholes. It’s amongst the simplest thing a Council does.
If our Council cannot fill in a hole in the road, can we be confident they can do any of the other stuff? If we can see you fixing the roads, they you are maybe – just maybe – doing the more important stuff well.”
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