Action needed now over state of Sheffield's streets

A street right in the heart of Sheffield and outside our historic Town Hall should clearly be one of those. Oh dear, I hear you say, you can all imagine what is coming next.

Those pesky cobbles or lack of them. They aren’t hard to replace, it doesn’t need big money or modern technology, it wouldn’t create big problems with the flow of traffic and it isn’t even a task that needs a huge amount of skill – it would just take time and a will to look after this city. How on earth are we so lacking in that?

You’ll have witnessed this appalling state of affairs with your own eyes. We all realise that Amey has its fair share of issues but let’s be frank, they also have what many consider to be more than a fair share of our money so they can’t also have our sympathy.

Personally, I don’t think April is soon enough to do this work. I also think we can be forgiven for not believing that Surrey Street will be fully restored then – until we see it.

If keeping such roads up to an acceptable standard adds to their costs, well, tough. Like many things, it is not something which our city should negotiate on and we mustn’t let any firm make these decisions on our behalf.

There are lots of issues which fit into this category but this one is particularly easy to solve and would have an exceptionally high impact quickly – so might I suggest the council stands up and demands speed action? If that isn’t within their control, they should tell us who is responsible for having put us in such a pickle.

These are the silences which so easily get filled when leaders don’t communicate properly. Answers, please.

- Thanks also to everyone who got in touch to help answer the question I posed about the delightful creature outside the train station. As Robin Hughes wrote: “I’m sure I won't be the only one to let you know that the curious creature depicted at Midland Station is a wyvern. It has only two legs, by contrast with dragons which usually have four.

The wyvern was the badge of the rulers of Mercia, which as all Sheffielders know had its northern boundary running through what are now our southern suburbs. It was the badge of the Midland Railway.”

I learn something every day.