Claims maintenance work has suffered

Cuts to the Department of Infrastructure's budget and its workforce have compounded the problems the Island has had with the weather in the last few days.

That's the belief of Bernard Moffatt, who worked for one of the precursors to the DoI, the Highway Board, in the 1980s.

He says the DoI has had its work force reduced to the extent that what used to be ongoing gulley and culvert maintenance is no longer undertaken.

Mr Moffatt says the department has cut its cloth, and has lost some of the local knowledge it used to have: