Weekly News comment... 

This week:- "Neville Street, Southport..."
Cartoon by Paul

lf you want to see more of his work is www.artistop.co.uk.

LAST week after getting a few letters in about the work being done on Neville Street in Southport, we asked for comments about it and boy oh boy did we get them.... We will run more next week as we are still getting them in! 

Overall the feeling is that it should look nice eventually, but people and businesses cannot understand why it is taking so long to do. We asked, and found that the contractors blamed the businesses and the council. The council blamed the contractors and the businesses, and the businesses blame the council and the contractors.... So that was as clear as mud, as ever. What did come out of it was the overall lack of communication that has besieged the town for the last few years. Also what have hampered things are red tape and some times just very strange things... 

John Kingston remarked that:- "It is the curse of Southport.... It strikes again. What are they doing? It will look nice, I am 100% positive on that, but can't they just leave the road the way it was and not make is smaller and why is it taking so long?"

David Eddleston asked:- "Yes the road needed work, but why take so long and reduce the parking in the town in the process of doing the road up? It is also making it into a hazard for when it opens, as it is now far too small for the amount of traffic that uses this important road!"

Andrew Shaw told us that he felt:- "Sefton is doing it's best to wage war on the car in Southport. Why do they not stop and think about what they are doing. Neville Street was fine. All it needed was new tarmac and the replacement of a few broken flags to make it look better. By making the road smaller, the planners will have made this into a bottleneck and an accident waiting to happen."

Mark from London said:- "Southport looks as if it is a building site. Why did they start work at the start of the holiday session?"

Margaret Holroyd commented:- "It is going to make a huge improvement to the area. The road has looked bad for some time now and this is just what it needs to make it look nice again. Well-done Sefton. Just speeds it up though!"

Joyce from Southport felt that:- "I like the idea of making it more pedestrian- friendly, but they need to think about how people will get into the town. The more pedestrian- friendly it gets, the less friendly the town gets to people with disabilities. It is also a problem at night, when you cannot get out of the town, as the pubs close at 2am but the rail and bus services finish at 11pm? If you can't park up in town, do you think people will stay in the town? What we really need are more improvements to the infrastructure rather than splashing out on unnecessary changes that cost more than they will save in the long run."

One business, that does not want to be named, wrote to us saying:- "I was informed by the council that the road works on Neville Street would take 16 weeks only. Being here, I can clearly see that this work could have been done in a shorter time. A worker also informed me that the council had an offer to do it in four weeks. Why wasn't I informed of this option/offer? After all I, and others like me, are paying our rates, so why can't we have a say on what is done on our road? Why is the council treating us like idiots? In fact, they are the idiots themselves. If they had an offer to do it in four weeks, I think it must have been cheaper than what it is costing now. It would also have lessened the impact (loss of income) on my business. In the end, the road should be far better, but in the short term it is creating a huge headache and making it harder to pay off loans, and pay employees."

Roberta Lee's said:- "I am looking forward to this new look to our street. It should increase the flow of punters no end. Well done Sefton, but please speed it up a bit..."

Next week's topic.... the Elections...   So what do you are readers think? Send your feelings in to us by email to news24@southportreporter.com or by post to Weekly Cartoon & Comments, Southport Reporter, 4a post Office Ave, Southport, Merseyside, PR9 0US. We will publish the results next week.