Road upgrade's lack of direction

While it may have been politically advantageous for the Liberal Democrat to blame his Labour predecessors, even more so given the enmity between the two parties in South Yorkshire, he cited the council officials who oversaw the scheme's imposition and the "town hall knows best" mentality that prevailed at the time.

It is a fundamental point that applies to every council, including Sheffield. For, while it is local councillors who are democratically accountable at the ballot box, it is the paid officials who are responsible for implementing policy on a daily basis and ensuring that their taxpayers receive "value for money".

This clearly did not happen with the imposition of bus lanes, and other measures, on the main A61 from Woodseats to Sheffield city centre. Far from improving the flow of traffic, the scheme's stated intention, the council has managed to spend 4m of public money making matters considerably worse, according to an independent review.

This is unacceptable. Not only are commuters being unnecessarily inconvenienced – but local residents will have to pay an additional 600,000 to rectify flaws which could have been avoided if the officers concerned had applied common sense and listened to the misgivings of local people.

There are two lessons to be learned from this avoidable fiasco.

Firstly, if the management of Sheffield Council's transport department does not improve, then council leader, Paul Scriven, should back his instincts and outsource the relevant work to people who can provide the necessary expertise.

Secondly, Sheffield Council needs to share the lessons that have been learned from this sorry saga with other councils, like Leeds, that are digging up main roads in order to install bus lanes. For, while public transport improvements are a necessity, they will quickly become counter-productive if the tailbacks are simply moved a few hundred

yards to another junction or inadequate stretch of road.