OUR road system is a complete shambles said Great Sankey reader George McKie on last week’s letters page.

And certainly anyone who was stuck in the horrendous traffic on Friday, December 5, due to a burst water pipe, would have to agree with George.

It was complete mayhem whether you were grounded in the north or south of the town.

Mums and dads were late to pick up their children from school and those hoping to make an early dart as it was Friday would have been delayed for an hour or two if not more.

Three lanes at the Pink Eye roundabout were reduced to one and cones were placed so far back that when the bus wanted to stop, all the traffic was brought to a standstill.

It was an emergency said United Utilities, yet you would never have known it from the workmen on the job. One bloke working while three stood around talking about it.

And to add insult to injury, they packed up and went home about 4pm because anyone travelling back from Penketh or Great Sankey towards the town centre would have seen the cones and not the workmen.

If it was an emergency then why wasn’t it sorted out that evening regardless of anyone’s clocking off time?

Surely to relieve the town’s already overcrowded roads should be a priority?

Adding to the gloom was an accident on the M6. All of us who live or work in this town are well used to a shambles whenever there’s a problem on the motorway.

I don’t know why they didn’t go a step further and get someone to call the Manchester Ship Canal Company to close off the swing bridge for some added amusement.

Sadly this trouble was far from an isolated incident as there was bedlam last Tuesday morning when commuters had long delays across the town centre after a computer glitch caused traffic light problems.

It took some drivers 30 minutes to travel along Academy Way and Mersey Street and Wilson Patten Street were also gridlocked.

It was all thanks to the traffic light servers on Bridge Foot going down and sending all lights on to a default setting.

Anyone who has the misfortune to travel through Bridge Foot in the mornings will know it’s madness at the best of times.

Traffic lights change, there’s no room for manoeuvere, someone sits in a yellow box junction, then the next set of lights change and no one can drive. It must be the craziest bit of road planning in the country.

And if Nick Bent, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Warrington South, is to be believed there is more road pandemonium to come.

He says that Warrington will face increased traffic as a result of a ‘double-whammy’ of charges on the new crossing and the existing Silver Jubilee bridge in Widnes and Runcorn.

Yet the Government is scrapping its plan for tolls on a road widening scheme down south. But the north west tolls will stay.

Something needs to change and politicians from all parties need to make sorting out our roads a priority.