I thank John J. Camilleri, executive secretary of the Mosta local council, for explaining the situation regarding the perennial large potholes present in Tal-Blata l-Għolja, Mosta Patching Of Potholes, (February 18).

In my letter of February 11, I primarily solicited an expert answer from a competent body, namely the road maintenance unit of the ADT. Mr Camilleri himself admits he is not competent to give an expert answer to my query. Mr Camilleri, with the clout of an institution representing the people of Mosta, could have been instrumental in getting an unequivocal statement from the ADT and not take the contractor's word for what constitutes acceptable road repair. The potholes in my street may have been damp but not "full of water" as claimed by Mr Camilleri or the contractor. When not raining, as was the case when the patching was being carried out, rainwater in potholes gets splashed out by passing traffic leaving little water at the base.

As regards the claim that mechanical sweepers cleared the loose bed of pulverised, recycled street surface before patching, a sample "post-mortem" of a filled pothole will reveal if the patch is laying on the loose material or not.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Camilleri that the streets in this locality, like many others, need to be resurfaced completely. After 25 years there must have been enough time to plan some sort of resurfacing programme. Mr Camilleri also implied that road patching is meant to give some semblance of a street surface only during the dry season; from November to March we are expected to live with car-mangling potholes.

Wherefrom the money? After the central government forfeited hundreds of residential streets in Malta to the care of local councils, the same councils should have pressed for appropriate funds to tackle what had become their responsibility. Claiming €50 per square metre of untarmacked residential streets in every locality to be used over a 20-year span is a reasonable claim by every council for street upkeep. On the other hand it is also a matter of priorities and even that is subjective and slave to local parochial piques. What economic advantage did it give the Mosta community to splash out €800,000 to pave around the Mosta church? Surely the tourists were not enticed to come to see the Mosta dome because of pretty paving. The 10 years of car related taxes I have personally shelled out would have resurfaced 10 per cent of the streets at Blata l-Għolja. The money spent on the paving around the church could have resurfaced all the streets in question twice over.