WE HAVE just returned from our annual stay at our timeshare cottage at the Hapimag Burnside Park in Bowness.

The weather was not so good this year but it did not stop us getting out to Ambleside, Grasmere, Elterwater and other locations. We made use of the local bus services to get about. From an environmental point of view as well as that of a car driver, it enabled me to see the beautiful scenery.

We found the bus drivers very helpful as normal and one driver on the 599 service was able to communicate to some foreign tourist in their native tongue. Lewis’s Café at Bowness Bay served up some lovely food and drink supported by excellent customer service skills. We also had a lovely lunch in Grasmere and Elterwater.

The only drawback was that, due to the rain, the roads had a lot of surface water and on three separate occasions we got a good soaking (good job we had waterproofs).

On investigating the reason for so much surface water and puddles it appeared that a lot of the road gulleys were filled to the top with silt so were not taking any road water. Glebe Road (not the refurbished section), the bus stop outside Lewis’s Café, Kendal Road, Rayrigg Road and the A592 had a large number of gulleys full of silt.

Given the damage caused by Storm Desmond I would have thought Cumbria County Council would have a system of planned preventative maintenance to have a road gulley suction/jetting vehicle visit on a regular basis, in an attempt to keep them doing their job.

Roger Walton

Pleasley, Mansfield