From Peter Bewers.
YOUR correspondent and former Treasurer of the States, John Clennett, makes interesting reading in his comments (JEP, 16 December) on the expenditure for our roads, namely Victoria Avenue, but I regret to say that I feel he is completely wrong.
Firstly, it is not the States’ money that is being spent on the essential repairs and resurfacing of our roads, it is the taxpayers’, and in this case the Island motorists pay from the huge amount of tax which is collected from them every time they buy fuel – around £2 for five litres (just over a gallon) plus 3% GST.
It does not take much imagination to see the very large amount of revenue being collected on our behalf – of which, in my opinion, a very small part is actually spent on maintaining the roads, but is used in all States spending. So you could say that the Island’s motorists are getting a very poor deal from the Treasury.
Motorists may well remember the old system of road tax, whereby we were charged according to the size and length of our vehicle. And the roads were maintained on a rolling programme of resurfacing and repair by Ronez Quarries. I feel that we had far better maintenance of our roads than we presently have.
In fact, I would go as far as to say that before the current repairs were put in hand on Victoria Avenue, I can scarcely remember the road being in such a poor state of repair.
You will also observe that on other roads in the Island a system of patching is the current practice, not one of regular resurfacing every few years, as used to be the practice.
I am not in any way blaming the current Transport minister, Mike Jackson, as I feel he has made a great effort to get a programme of work under way within the financial budget at his disposal and is trying to make up for years of neglect on the Avenue and the promenade, and I applaud him.
It would make interesting reading to learn just how much tax is collected from the sale of motor fuel and how little of this is spent in maintaining our Island roads.
