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When I first got into politics back in the 1970s the buzz word among Liberals (as we then were) was 'pavement politics'. This cleverly referred both to the issues we should be concentrating on, and our method of campaigning. Indeed, Focus was born back then, and was a radical approach to doing politics on a micro-local scale.

I mention that because at South of the Borough Neighbourhood last night we were talking about - pavements.

The Committee had just £104,900 to spend in 2010-2011 on relaying roads and pavements across the whole Neighbourhood. That amount does not go far. Road resurfacing costs anything from £10,000 for a short stretch of road, up to £100,000 or more for a long road. Pavements, oddly enough, can be even more expensive.

We decided to put the whole sum towards pavements. The highways officers had carried out a complete assessment of all the pavements, and had gone back again after the bad weather. They had ranked the pavements in order of priority.

The outcome is that only the four stretches of pavement which emerged as most in need of replacement will be treated. They are Frimley Road (evens from 18 to 86), Gilders Road (between Filby and Billockby), Frimley Road(between 19 and 63) and Stormont Way (both sides).

It doesn't mean that roads themselves will not be repaired.

This fund was for 'planned highways maintenance' that is, for pre-planned large scale projects. There is also a fund for 'responsive highways maintenance' which deals with all the repairs, potholes etc. In another part of the agenda we also agreed to transfer the Neighbourhood's budget underspend of £37,400 to responsive maintenance so that it could be used immediately to deal with problems caused by the snow and ice.