Our View
Why wait until people complain?
IT may well be a successful system of communication for some but Bradford's text a problem' scheme is not the ideal solution to deteriorating local infrastructure.
For one thing, as anyone with elderly relatives will tell you, texting is an arcane activity available only to those comfortable with the obscure rites of modern technology. People of a certain age would rather suffer for years in the semi-darkness caused by broken street lights than face the horrors of a mobile phone key pad.
They want to telephone the council, find a sympathetic human being on the other end of the line and pass on a message to the appropriate department that something needs doing about whatever problem they are experiencing. The text messaging service may be so successful for the simple reason is that very few people are aware of it and are willing to use it. If everyone in the district started using the service from tomorrow morning, how then would the operators cope?
There is also the question of whether or not it is the responsibility of the local authority to identify its own problems. After all, if a company was producing a consumer product, it would hardly be good practice to wait until people complained before quality control was engaged.
Broken pavements cause injuries to pedestrians and holes in vehicle carriageways cause damage to vehicles and are potential road accidents.
It should be the local authority's responsibility to regularly inspect and maintain street lamps, road surfaces and pavements before they become a problem and cause people difficulty. It is not good enough to wait until people complain - either by text message or any other way - before something is fixed.
4:16pm Thursday 29th November 2007
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