So it’s official now, the Mayor of London will not pour any more money into the Croxley Rail Link; unless Transport Secretary Chris Grayling will shake the money tree, that’s curtains for the Metropolitan Line extension.

Or, as the spokesman for the Mayor of London says more formally ‘This project is outside London and therefore responsibility for delivering it lies with the Government it is not right that London taxpayers should have to pay even more towards it’.

Quite right, he has a duty to protect his taxpayers and their money.

SEE ALSO: Have plans to extend the Metropolitan Line derailed?

But what about Watford’s taxpayers? Is anyone protecting us? This is the bit where you’d be wise to have a stiff drink before reading on.

Watford Borough Council has already sunk £10m into this scheme and Hertfordshire County Council (HCC), also with our money, has thrown in £130m. To what end? None, save a very large hole in our finances.

Could anyone have seen this debacle coming? From the beginning in 2011, our Council was being advised, not only in these columns, that to embark on what was likely to be an increasingly costly scheme at a time when, post-recession, local authority money was being squeezed as never before was rash and unwise. But the Council needed a success story and was determined to press on.

You might have thought, though, that our Council would have wanted a fully binding commitment from all other parties before parting with a single penny of taxpayer’s money.

The scheme was originally to be managed by HCC; as the planning progressed it became clear, though, that it was beyond the capabilities and expertise of HCC, so management was handed over to Transport for London (TfL) in November 2015.

But it was to be a venture with TfL in sole charge, and Watford was left with no legal protection for its contribution nor was it to have any say in how or whether the scheme was to be carried out.

And the Council lamely accepted this: ‘Watford Borough Council has no responsibility for the extension’ said our Mayor’s Personal Assistant a few weeks ago. So TfL has now, without consultation, pulled the plug and our £10m disappears down the plughole.

Is the loss of £10m really a big deal for Watford? To put it in context, the message which we’ve all received from the Council with our new Council Tax demand shows the Council’s total resources as £71.1m – so about one seventh of this has been thrown away. Imagine if we conducted our personal finances like this, squandering one seventh of our money on some unnecessary scheme over which we had no control. We’d rightly be called spendthrift and improvident.

Why has the Mayor of London scrapped a scheme which his predecessor, Boris Johnson, had provisionally approved?

Well, there’s a clue in his title. Last autumn, he gave the green light to over a dozen transport schemes: the only one he blocked was the one which lay outside London – so he’ll not lose a single vote by his decision.

As our council must be tired of hearing now, we’d have had better government of Watford from City Hall than Town Hall.

Will heads roll? Don’t be silly, this is just how small-town Watford functions.

Anthony Bramley-Harker, Hibbert Avenue Lampost fixed The week before last you published the photo I sent you of our local leaning lamppost. To give credit where it’s due, I phoned the council and just two hours later Ringway turned up with lorry, crane and a bucket of cement.

They said lamppost is now at a full 90 degrees to the perpendicular.

No such success has followed the countless reports of not only deep potholes, but also foot-long crevasses on the main Elstree Road. Ironic then to receive the latest Horizon, Hertfordshire County Council’s version of Pravda, with pictures of excellent road maintenance.

Not around these parts. Cyclists take their lives in their hands and motorists risk broken suspensions and burst tyres. Fasten your seat belts folks - it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Barry Hyman, Bushey Heath