How many men does it take to resurface an avenue?

To be honest, I don’t often have reason to use the Avenue during daylight, when most of the work is being carried out.

But last week I had to travel to the UK and it was on the return journey into town that the impact of the everlasting road works took its toll.

Acres of road surface were taken up by bright yellow monster trucks – most of which seemed to by lying idle – while numerous little men in hard hats and luminous jackets stood around holes, trenches and the like.

Occasionally I spotted one that actually seemed to be engaged in something resembling work – but the whole scene reminded me of something that would not have looked amiss in an episode of Bob the Builder.

My incomprehension was compounded by the fact that just a few days before, while in southern England, I had witnessed one lorry and a team of blokes fixing a roadway in the time it took me to eat a Cornish pasty and drink a cup of tea. They just got on with it. Job done.

Not so in Jersey. Could it be, I wonder, that the Avenue roadworks are simply keeping people occupied and in paid jobs, rather than getting the work completed in a reasonable time and with the minimum of disruption to Island motorists, not to mention the cyclists and pedestrians using the adjacent pavement?

It is, after all, our main and only dual thoroughfare. Although from the amount of equipment littering the roadside, you might be forgiven for thinking that it was a six-lane motorway repair.

Actually, how do the authorities elsewhere carry out repairs on major arteries these days? Do repairs to the M5 or the M25 take any more time that it is taking the crew organising the Victoria Avenue fiasco to do whatever it is they are doing?

More’s the point, will the Avenue be any easier to navigate than it was before? It may be some time before we know the answer to that. And the cost? Did someone mention £12 million?