Reader Hilary Hares has penned a satirical poem reflecting on frustration over Farnham’s ongoing roadworks situation.

She said: “I doubt you'll publish this but I hope that, at least, it will bring a smile to a Monday morning.”

Here’s her work:

It’s been our fate since Hunt was our MP and now we’re 15 months in,

The Georgian splendour which once was Castle Street is just a cluttered mass of cones and council vans and no-go signs,

The traffic lights are out of sync and so pedestrians hurl themselves across the road at will,

And all the motorists can do is sit and fume and pray, mostly in vain, the lights will change,

Or they’ll be on a warning when they’re late for work.

It was inevitable, of course, contractors would run out of fancy-smanchy paving blocks before the job was done,

But that’s the best you get for £16 million and blotchy lumps of Tarmac take their place to plug the gaps,

While we stand by in disbelief and gape.

Today, the local protest groups are out in force in anoraks and scarves. Marooned in a morass of potholes and protruding pipes,

They wave their clipboards at us in the hope that we’ll endorse their plea to save the shops.

Tonight a squad of blokes in helmets and hi-vis will take their place, their job to rearrange the orange signs and reconstruct the maze so, in the morning,

It will be impossible to tell if a new route will lead to Elphicks or to certain death.

Hilary Hares

Farnham