IN a sense, City Of York Council just can't win. The council is damned if it does nothing to the city's roads and damned when it does do something. We complain about bumps, ruts and potholes - and then moan with greater vigour when the fixing of such defects causes roadworks.

Another dimension to this matter is that it is worth suffering short-term inconvenience if the work blocking your usual route in and out of York is being done to make safe a dangerous junction. That much is surely the case with the roadworks at Stockton Lane and Heworth Green, where a notoriously tricky junction is being tamed.

And, yes, it obviously makes sense for roadworks to be carried out in summer when the weather is likely to be better. But does all such work have to be done at the same time? For in York at present it seems some unspoken law of traffic chaos is in operation. Hull Road, Haxby Road, Heworth Green are gummed up by roadworks. York is crowded with cars at the best of times and this spate of summer roadworks risks turning a busy city into an impossible one.

Everyone has a tale of York's roads, a tale of fuming in the fumes and getting absolutely nowhere. The seizing up of York is an inconvenience to locals and visitors alike, for the attractions of the city ensure that visitors are always drawn in.

Yet as well as turning York into one big traffic jam, these roadworks are also making life even more difficult for ambulance drivers, whose journeys are essential and can be a matter of life and death. As one ambulance officer tells us today, putting on the lights and sirens makes no difference but merely adds to patient stress.

So to prevent further outbreaks of traffic chaos, it would surely make sense to spread the roadworks out a little, rather than cramming them into one busy spell. After all, the months of May to August have a reasonable chance of being fair.