Ignored

Common Sense has left the building. Reading the North Somerset Times this week made me wonder what is going on in local and national government. How have we managed to get ourselves into the situation where common sense is the first thing to be ignored, followed by the wishes of the people the politicians are elected to serve?One article after another seemed to indicate that the people in power have no idea about normal life and what we need. Is it really new by-laws to stop people walking their dogs? According to Sport England's Active People Survey we do little enough exercise as it is.The windows are falling out of the school buildings so the best idea is to waste money by boarding them up and put off re-building for a while when it will cost twice as much.Road maintenance is poor and the potholes are deep but health and safety only applies to the re-cycling of items from the civic amenity sites. I thought we were supposed to be increasing re-cycling, encouraged at every step to save the planet. People wanting secondhand furniture surely have the ability to choose, to buy or not, if it is unsafe.Where are the traffic police? Gone, so the lads are free to run around with loud exhausts and stereos and a lot of drivers are economising on replacing light bulbs and using indicators. Why should they bother about details like insurance, MOTs or road tax?To further enhance criminal activity we may be turning out the street lights. No doubt they will leave the traffic lights on at roundabouts in the middle of the night though.Why is Bristol International Airport allowed to monopolise parking? How does it spoil the countryside to park cars in one area but not another? Now they want to enlarge the airport for more parking while forbidding local farmers from doing so. Apart from the lack of traffic cops, which is more about road safety than speed cameras, all the other issues were in the paper last week. It is such a shame that our wonderful region is being blighted in the name of political correctness, bring back common sense.Mark Slade - Pedder Road, Clevedon