Comment: The pain that won’t go away

Jan 21 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

PERHAPS the main surprise from the online survey we have conducted into the effects of the Big Dig – the results of which we reveal today on Pages 6-7 – is that only 80% of respondents believe business has suffered as a result of the ongoing roadworks nightmare.

When major firms in the city have themselves complained bitterly about the impact of the Big Dig on their takings, it’s difficult to understand how 20% of those participating in the survey feel that business has not been damaged by the conglomeration of cones that has bedevilled our city for so long.

Lewis’s department store, for instance, cited problems caused by the Big Dig for its difficulties when it went into administration last year. And Rapid Hardware also said it had noticed the effect of the diggers on trade since work began.

Having said that, few disagree that the work was actually necessary. A city with undeniably exciting 21st-century aspirations will get nowhere if it drags an early 20th-century infrastructure along with it.

What is the point of enticing hordes of extra tourists/shoppers to Liverpool, if the roads just cannot cope? We do, after all, want visitors to tell their friends to come, too. What we don’t want is travellers telling tales about how they missed the shops, or that show they were looking forward to at the Echo Arena Liverpool, because they couldn’t get through the traffic queues.

There is certainly an element of that at the moment among many long-suffering residents who – as our survey shows – feel that their journeys through town have been lengthened by up to 20 minutes because of the upheaval.

Liverpool City Council acknowledges that there may have been occasions when things could have been done more efficiently – and when it is claimed that some road surfaces have been dug up three times, that must certainly be true.

The city council says, in the traditional response to those assailed by critics: "No pain, no gain". But it does seem to be a pain that has been with us for an awful long time.