'Joined-up government' is a vogue phrase at the moment, and you can see what people mean by it. When the gas people dig up your road one week and carefully make good (we hope), and the water people come a couple of weeks later and dig it all up again, you yearn for some co-ordination.

We came across an example regarding Overleigh, when we were negotiating with Mendip about conservation issues, and then, without warning or by-your-leave, Somerset Country Council sent someone to decide whether to knock down a venerable and attractive wall and widen the country lane so that cars sould rush by, knocking the children, other pedestrians and motorised wheelchair users flying.

Thank God they didn't go forward with the hare-brained scheme. All they did was leave a stud hammered into the tarmac and a number of worried residents. But apparently the Highways Department, belonging to Somerset CC, can do what it likes, without consulting Mendip. Or that's what I gather. I may be wrong.

And then the police seem to have a hand in things to do with parking, too. And the really local people, Street Parish Council, who know what's what in the immediate area, seem to have no effective say at all.

Parking. That's the issue worrying some of us. Pavements in Merriman Road are being lowered and white lines are appearing in the road. Who lowered the pavement? Who painted the white lines? Whose responsibility is it to give permission? And who has an overall view of the needs of drivers, cyclists and pedestrians in Street? If there is anyone with such an overview, do they have the authority to get things done?

There was a time when our town signs - sorry, village signs - proudly announced Free Parking. Then some authority stepped in and compelled us to make the car parks pay. Parked cars appeared overnight along all the roads near the High Street, and my barber lost a lot of customers who could no longer park outside his shop. Now the car parks are filled again and still the roads are clogged with parked cars.

My son in London has over the years done a lot of unpaid work gathering information about traffic flow, bicycle use and safety, effect on local residents and so on, in his part of North London, and his local council has taken notice and changed some one-way systems back into two-way, to general satisfaction, and even bankrolled schemes for cycle storage to encourage fewer car journeys and more healthy cycling.

Perhaps it takes private initiative to get the facts, present them to all the local authorities, and then knock the heads of officials together until they come up with some joined-up government regarding cars in Street and what to do with them.

Meanwhile, Merriman Road is continuing its chaotic changes.