LETTER: Meaningless yardstick

Why do they do it? In last week’s WSCT, the leader of WSCC, Louise Goldsmith, attempted to give credence to the council’s cost-cutting four year plan and budget by deciding ‘to share with us a small snapshot of achievements over the last 12 months’.
By The Newsroom
Published 3rd Mar 2015, 06:00 BST
Your lettersYour letters
Your letters

She then followed with the politicians’ usual practice of listing meaningless statistics to try to impress. Don’t these people realise that without comparator figures no sensible conclusions can be drawn?

100,000 tons of recycled waste sounds good, but without knowing how many tons went to landfill you really can’t say. It may in fact be a pathetic achievement.

77,000 gullies cleaned... out of how many and at what cost?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

15,000 potholes filled... but no information as to money wasted in compensation paid to motorists hitting those unfilled!

20,000 health checks... but just how many residents are there in the target age group of 40-74?

I could go on. But there is one claim that really got me thinking. ‘We’ve replaced 1.8 million square miles of road as part of the Better Roads programme’. Now that is very impressive in a county of just 769 square miles don’t you think!

No wonder residents greet politician’s claims with a high degree of scepticism. It appears well-founded.

PAUL KORNYCKY

Cox Green, Rudgwick

Editor’s note: the county council has said sorry for the error, the figure should have read 1.8m square metres.