Financial penalties provision is needed

Dear Sir,

I would like to comment on the article in last week's Chronicle, p6 in which you discuss the re-awarding of Cheshire East's highways contract to Highways Jacobs for up to 15 years.

I note the healthy profi t margins in the previous years with mention of continuing audit and key performance indicator checks to ensure value for money.

What your article doesn't mention is any audit of highway users' satisfaction on the same continuing basis.

It seems to me that many highways projects are unnecessarily prolonged, I assume so best use can be made of the company's resources including people and machinery.

This gives the impression that these same consumers are sacrifi ced so that profi t margins can be maintained.

Unless the contract mentioned contains provision for meaningful fi nancial penalties in regard to this issue, I can see little change to this unsatisfactory state of affairs.

Yours faithfully,

(DR) PETER HIRST

Middlewich.