From: Peter Horton, Sandy Lane, Ripon.

Andrew Vine’s feature (The YP, March 5) highlights the dreadful state of some of our roads and the costs to motorists to repair the damage caused to their vehicles. He says that it would take 12 years and £18.6bn to repair and restore all roads to a proper condition. Meanwhile the government has allocated a pathetic paltry sum of £1.6bn across all local councils for repair purposes.

He mentions that local authorities raked in £530m from parking fines last year but omits to tell us that the Treasury rakes in a total of £55.4bn a year at current rates from fuel duty, road tax and VAT on vehicle purchase; all no doubt swallowed up into the general taxation pot to fund overstaffed bureaucracy and over-generous welfare.

Just 34 per cent of this sum would meet the necessary costs and a bigger allocation could speed up a repairs programme. It is morally essential to give something back to the drivers and vehicle owners who have been forced to pay this money. But don’t expect anything reasonable and sensible from the current anti-motorist band of politicians.