WILTSHIRE Council leader Jane Scott appeared on BBC Radio Wiltshire on yesterday to answer listeners' questions.

With the council's budget fresh in recent memory, Baroness Scott was asked about several issues, including health and social care, recycling, and potholes.

One caller asked if there was a link between minor road repairs and areas where rich people live.

But Baroness Scott blamed the state of the roads on "de-investment" by the previous Liberal Democrat administration, 17 years ago.

She said: "This always comes up. We are a large rural county, with a huge amount of rural roads and they were very badly invested in the 1900s.

"We had 85 years of backlog and it takes a lot of investment and time to recover."

Baroness Scott added that the council could never do enough, or find enough money to do enough.

"I would like to find ten times that amount of money and do them all. But if there is a pothole then people need to get hold of the app, take a picture and send it into County Hall; If it is a dangerous pothole it will be mended."

The closure of bus services across the county was another contentious issue, with several people questioning what Wiltshire Council's plans were.

Baroness Scott said that unlike the majority of counties, aid was provided for bus companies, but predicted that it would be "possibly inevitable" they would get smaller, and the number of buses available would be reduced.

The costs of journeys was also raised, including bus passes for pensioners.

Some trips were said to cost £10 to £15, with the bus companies unable to claim the money back.

Baroness Scott said: "I think it is a national and sensitive issue about whether every pensioner should have these perks, or whether pensioners shouldn't.

"If the government would calm down on rules and regulations it would help to subsidise those people."

She added that if the costs became unreasonable then the council would have to cut or change the timetables, and make sure it was not spending tax-payers' money on "things that were inefficient".