Is there a secret PKC roads agenda?

Dec 5 2008

Dear Editor, – I have just read the Winter issue of Perth and Kinross News, sent as usual to every local household by Perth & Kinross Council. Again, this publication’s pages are packed with all kinds of authoritative and official hints and tips, facts and figures.

But I’m left wondering, however, about something – significant, it seems to me – slipped without ceremony into a front page story headed, “There’s Snow Business”.

It’s about the Council’s Winter Roads programme. We’re told that the Maintenance Team will be on standby for the next few months “to ensure that the 2500km of local roads are free from snow and ice”. No, it doesn’t say miles. It says kilometres.

A simple mistake, I told myself. PKC can’t be planning to dump miles? But wait: have I missed the changeover, I wonder? And what’s the miles equivalent of 2500km because, to be honest, I’ve no idea how far 2500km might be.

Anyway, as prompted by the front page piece, I turned to the special four-page feature inside. Perhaps it would all be explained there?

On the second page of the Winter feature we get the Snow Business story in full, starting with, and I quote: “With more than 2500km of local roads to keep clear...” So it wasn’t a mistake. The Editor and his specialist outside editorial team meant to give us the distance in kilometres – and, noticeably, in the two-page report there’s no reference of any kind to miles.

So, have miles in Perth and Kinross reached the end of the road? Surely not!

Name and address supplied.