If I need to go to the shopping centre at Lyme Green I have two choices. I could turn left or right at the end of the road.

Turning right, I can get onto Ivy Lane and up to the traffic lights at the Flower Pot. If I'm lucky I won't have to wait too long before getting across this junction, which has been waiting more than ten years for improvement following a fatality there. It's so badly designed that a single car can block everyone on Ivy Lane, and turning right into this road is a deadly game of chance. But there's never been any urgency to fix it, probably because all the highways cash is spent in other parts of the borough. Neither the council nor the police has shown any interest in making this junction safer, though a few extra white lines would make a big difference.

Once across the junction I can go down Park Lane, a road that is well over capacity at peak hours because the promised relief road is still just lines on a map. The congestion is worsened by the Learning Zone, built some years ago to house Macclesfield College and the Academy. Narrow road, narrow pavements, schoolchildren often around, bus stops where traffic can easily be held up, a couple of junctions with traffic lights where, again, right-turning vehicles block everyone else.

Past the roundabout, past the derelict land where Lidl was supposed to build a store, but after ten years of planning delay decided to walk away. Right at the lights. Right at the next lights onto the busy London Road, another overloaded pinch point. Finally getting up some speed for the last leg past the Moss Rose and journey's end is in sight.

Alternatively I could turn left and drive along Valley Road, though forget that if it's anywhere near school opening and closing time. The extra traffic adds to the hazards of traffic calming (!) humps and road narrowing features. To give the planners their due, they thoughtfully left gaps for cyclists to get through, though these are useless because of all the parked cars.

Left onto Thornton Avenue, one of the worst roads in Macclesfield although it's a key route into the estate. Pavements in this area are hardly raised from the road surface and the impression is more like a village in eastern Europe than a town in prosperous Cheshire. Still, it's better than Oxford Road, so badly rutted that it's like an African cart track. Every time I drive through Congleton, Poynton, Nantwich or any other town in the borough I wonder at the near-perfection of the road surfaces compared with most roads in Macclesfield.

Now the tricky bit: turning right onto Congleton Road. This has only one plus point - it's slightly easier than going round by the Flower Pot. The council has thoughtfully sited a bus stop right opposite the junction - where it's technically illegal to park - but even without buses, it can take a while to get out. Indeed, Cheshire East seems to delight in placing bus stops where they can create the maximum delay and hazard. Left into Moss Lane, past the many new houses being built without any thought as to increased traffic, through the tight right-angle bends and right into Star Lane. Just one more hazardous right turn onto London Road and I'm there.

It really shouldn't be like this. Our roads are knackered, our pavements are more patch than pavement, absolutely nothing has been done in the last 30 years to address the traffic congestion that blights the town. We watch enviously as Poynton gets not one but two makeovers, Congleton gets a brand new bypass (BEFORE the new houses are built), Crewe, Middlewich soon, but in Macclesfield there's no progress. An "active travel" experiment was foisted on the Weston estate a few years ago - but only half implemented - and abandoned because it made no difference at all. Meanwhile, roads that need a 20mph limit are ignored. Housing estates are being thrown up all around the town but the only concession to traffic management has been converting a roundabout to traffic lights, on an oddly curved junction that always feels unsafe.

And now they're talking about "improving local democracy" by bringing together Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Warrington, and already the focus is on the west of the county. Nothing for Macclesfield.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of council expenditure per head in each of the main towns, but somehow I doubt that information would be available. I wonder why...

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