“BAD roads are driving away motorists from the Holsworthy area, especially those with caravans”, was a comment by Mary Whateley, clerk of Shebbear Parish Council, who was attending a meeting in the Holsworthy Memorial Hall on the evening of Thursday, June 16, writes Christine Williams.

The meeting was arranged by Holsworthy Rural’s County Councillor Barry Parsons (Cons) following the allocation of £99,979 by Devon County Council for road improvements in the area, as reported in last week’s Post, and attended by town and local parish councillors.

Leading the meeting were three Devon County Council representatives; Carl Haggerty, Guardian Public Services award winner, Ali Boyd, Locality Development Officer and Louise Taylor, Partnership Research Manager — but there were no representatives from Devon Highways.

Mr Haggerty told the councillors he wanted a conversation with them to learn from their local knowledge and experience in the hope that solutions and priorities could emerge. Inevitably bad, indeed, dangerous roads in the area were highlighted, in particular one raised by Nigel Manners, of Bradford Parish Council, in his area.

David Perkin of Ashwater raised the inefficiency and time wasting practices of South West Highways and said the County Highways were not properly managing the work done by the contractors.

Holsworthy Town Councillor Colin Punter asked what the criteria were for deciding what work should be prioritised.

Mr Haggerty said he did not want to hear of individual cases of potholes or poor road surfaces and was anxious for the meeting to move on to study maps set out on the tables showing in different colours the classes of roads in the area. He invited the councillors to ‘redefine their priorities’ and write down comments and promised he would take back his findings to Devon Highways.

However, there was a word of caution from Cllr Parsons who said that the present budget allocation was less than half the money needed to maintain the roads in their present condition.

It emerged from the meeting that 10 months after Well Park car park in Holsworthy was resurfaced, the legal wrangle as to who is responsible for resurfacing the final five-metre stretch of road at its entrance has not been resolved and the issue drags on.