Roadworks can sometimes seem like the bane of your life, leaving you deadlocked in traffic, frustrated, and most likely late for work.

There are road repairs happening right across Cumbria, and the M6 has been reduced to just two lanes in many places while teams work to install new crash barriers.

But most of us realise that it’s a job that needs doing - we rely on the roads to be well maintained and although there is a pothole here and there, the council’s highways team do a good job of keeping the county moving.

This is, after all, a disparately populated county, and in case you’ve never noticed, it happens to be full of mountains that have to be circumnavigated.

Which is why the news that Cumbria County Council will once again have to dig up the A590, which has seen numerous roadworks and temporary traffic lights over the years, is so annoying. There needs to be joined up thinking with other agencies, and above all a need to get the job done right. How many times has the council dug up a road, just for a water or gas supplier to dig up the same stretch of the road weeks later, for a completely different purpose?

Commuters, by and large, appreciate the work that goes into the roads (we do, after all, pay for it), but they also demand a little common sense.