Twin signs of waste?

Published: 2:02 PM March 16, 2006 Updated: 8:16 PM February 22, 2021

THIS sign (it has a twin at the other end of the bypass) cost £1500 according to Philip Crack of Cambridgeshire County Council. Readers might wish to consider if it was money well spent to tell us that a highway has something to do with The Department of

THIS sign (it has a twin at the other end of the bypass) cost £1500 according to Philip Crack of Cambridgeshire County Council. Readers might wish to consider if it was money well spent to tell us that a highway has something to do with The Department of Transport and that, being in Cambridgeshire, it was managed by Cambridgeshire County Council.

It wasn't easy to find out the cost. After asking him three times in over two months for the information, Councillor John Powley described me in an internal memo as "persistent".

I treat this as a compliment but, when it comes to unnecessary expenditure, wouldn't it be a good idea if the man responsible for the county council's overspending was as persistent in identifying wastage of money?

And the bypass may be open but it still isn't finished - the crossing near Downham windmill, designed together with the bridge over the roundabout and the street lighting in Carter Street North to aid the passage of school-children cycling to school from Fordham (do Cambridgeshire know there's a well patronised school bus?).