AS I gazed out of my window at endless heaps of snow and blocked roads all around our village of Hethe last week, an idle thought crossed my peanut-paid brain: how many others are doing the same, only in a different position than I’m in, in so far as they are owners or operators of excavators, which are standing idle in their sheds and would be idle as long as they couldn’t get to work, because of blocked country roads?

Earlier, I had been listening to a transport minister on the radio, being grilled by a very clever BBC interrogator, asking why we were again bogged down after a couple of days of snow.

The minister’s answer was simple – we cannot invest in equipment that could stand idle for maybe one or two years, if not longer, until we get another bout of “freak” weather.

That’s when I leaped out of my chair.

Eureka!

Get the idle JCB owners and operators busy clearing the roads on their local patch.

Pay them for the two or three days’ work.

End of story, no investment required. Now what else can I think of?

TONY O’GORMAN, Main Street, Hethe