I am writing regarding the state of the roads in our area and beyond.
Earlier in the year our roads had been repaired, at what I can only imagine to be horrendous expense.
Now, following the harvest, they are yet again cracked, sunken and destroyed by heavy traffic which far exceeds the roads design limits.
To my mind, this is symptomatic of stupid, corrupt and wasteful government.
The farmers should not be being taxed on diesel fuel at all; because they are, they maximise the loads they haul and destroy our roads.
If they weren’t taxed on diesel but also had a weight limit imposed on goods transported there would be a number of benefits.
Currently the tax payer is taking a triple beating, we are taxed to repair the roads, we have to fund repairs to our private vehicles because Lincolnshire County Council will neither repair the roads nor accept responsibility for the damage and we have to endure an increased cost of living due to the stupid taxation of energy that farmers have to pass on to the consumer!
Taxing farmers’ fuel is so stupid that I can only imagine corruption is involved as incompetence falls far short of this deliberate sabotage that costs far more than it could ever generate in return.
If the tax on farmers’ fuel were repealed, we would see direct economic benefits, our road maintenance costs would be massively reduced, we could spend far more money on repairing the many years worth of frost damage potholes.
The price of food could be reduced and people could the spend money on less essential items or, God forbid, even be able to save some.
There would be fewer lost days at work due to vehicle damage and transport problems.
There may even be enough money left in the job for farmers to employ more people.
Such a simple decision with such amplified consequences for every constituent whether they are a driver or not.
Personally I have had to get my tracking done three times in the last year and will probably need to take it back to Gale Force Tyres again in the next week or two!
The rims on all my wheels look like 50p coins.
It is not good enough and it is easy to fix if we can just recognise this false economy!
David Doherty
Weston Hills
