Grant Parker’s Faustian experience where he thought he was being pulled into Hell (I thought Hell had opened up, May 7) made the national news and was treated as a light hearted filler so to speak.

However, as any driver and cyclist will tell you, the state of York’s roads is no laughing matter.

I am all for Big Society where people take more responsibility for their environment, but does maintenance of the highways come into that remit?

It seems the pot-holed roads are just boshed with a layer of thin asphalt so that a few days later the holes have reappeared and are full of water.

We still have decaying and leaking pipes and blocked drains after decades of neglect.

Note to those without flood insurance - be aware that rising drain water can flood a house several hundred yards away from a river.

Where do the profits of water companies go? Well, they are privatised so a torrent of much-needed revenue will be gushing into the swollen bank accounts of shareholders home and abroad, where it will continue to flow until the water companies are rightly re-nationalised.

Meanwhile people, vehicles and cash are disappearing down bottomless black holes all the way to Hades.

Brian McCusker,

Hartoft Street, York