In last week’s Watford Observer your correspondent Barney Davis complained of potholes and the government’s failure to mend them (Enough of this potholery, Letters, October 5).

Go to Germany or the Netherlands and drive on pothole-free roads. Why the difference? It’s down to the wealth of Germany and the Netherlands per person compared to the UK. I can tell Barney Davis that UK roads were equally pothole-free in the last century because the UK had a manufacturing industry.

Compare German and British 2018 industrial output: it’s 70 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively. The world used to buy British but in the Maggie Thatcher government manufacturing became a dirty word and successive administrations of both Labour and Tory persisted with dependence on banks etc. Bankers, Thatcher said, would make the UK rich but many of the big banks stole our money and moved to tax havens so there was no money left to invest in manufacturing. What you sow, you reap, Mr Davis. I’m afraid you’ll need to get used to potholed roads into the next century because fewer people connect work with prosperity. Evidently the Dutch do because their roads are pothole-free.

Ron Pearse

Nascot Street, Watford