There are so many places now making it difficult or impossible to drive on main roads. Councils who plead poverty and claim increases in grants from Whitehall do not count or are in effect cuts seem to have endless money for reducing the roadspace for vans, delivery Lorries and cars.
With more of their officers working from home there is more scorn for those of us who need a car to get to work or to come to their homes to provide a service or a delivery.
There is money for line painting, money for new aggressive kerbs, money to pave over parts of the carriageway, money for more sets of traffic lights, money for more bollards, money to block one entire lane of a two lane road, money to put street furniture and plant tubs in to restrict the roadspace,money to keep changing the speed limit in the same urban area from 20 to 30 to 20, money to block side roads altogether, money to invent local traffic areas, money to install cameras and money to put up a multitude of signs. The more complex the arrangement the better . Doubtless there has been a fortune spent on consultants to design the fiendish ways of restricting vehicles .
There is little thought for ambulances, fire engines and other emergency vehicles. There is no thought for the army of small businesses that come to do work in people’s homes that need to bring their tools and supplies in a van. There are usually very restrictive and expensive parking policies designed to stop anyone coming by vehicle to do a days work.
Why do these Councils hate us so much? Why do they send taxpayers huge bills for making life more difficult? Why do they want the Uk to be less competitive? Why are they so anti work?
October 16, 2023
It’s to do with too many jobsworths employed by the councils, who have too much time on their hands. These people, usualy working from home, read the gov.uk road safety statistics (1,711 fatalities in 2023 – down from 2,222 in 2009) and think up ways to reduce the accident levels even more. Hence the extra bollards etc.
Don’t forget that thanks to the out-of-control migrant numbers – who know that London’s streets are paved with gold – the numbers of vehicles on our roads increase every year.
I would rather see a reduction of 75% in the senior management of these councils and a resulting serious discount in the exorbitant amount of council tax that I have to pay
October 16, 2023
@SG; How does “working from home” affect the sort of polices thought up by Whitehall or Council Jobsworth, unless you’re trying to suggest when working in the office far to much time is spent skiving at the water cooler, leaving less time for their jobsworth thoughts. Why do some overly condemn WFH, whilst never doing the same of those who set up trading consoles in their spare bedrooms. I can understand commercial Landlords having a fit about increased WFH, with the corresponding reduction in corporate Real Estate needs, but to many others appear to be using the issue as brickbats.
I do agree though, legal immigration, especially in to London, has increased the number of Chelsea Tractors & over sized Limousines on our roads; whilst country areas have been lacking farm tractors, bringing in the harvest due to labour shortages, if it wasn’t for diversification, wind and solar farms, or set-aside many farmers would be in real trouble, yet many who complain about ‘low skilled’ migration also complain about the air-miles of their imported food!
October 17, 2023
Thank goodness for James Dyson getting into British farming to try to bring the technological advances to farming that they will need moving forward. I was only reading about him at the weekend, as they do in Japan. I wonder what JCB and people like that are doing to make farming less manual.
October 18, 2023
@a-tracy; I suggest you meet with some real farmers (better still do a year working on a mixed farm), not simply ‘follow’ those seeking publicity, worse still those who have never designed any innovation, instead have merely repackaging technology that had been used in industry since at least the 1920s, miniaturization and/or finding alternate uses is not high tech innovation, it’s not really even innovation, just clever marketing!
October 16, 2023
It’s (why our roads / everything is messed up) because our country is just far more LAZY and / or GREEDY than it was 50 years ago. We’ve lost WORK ETHIC, SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY, PATRIOTISM etc … I blame SOCIALISM for that. Also Liberal WOKISM for that too. And also, selfish, overly-INDIVIDUALISTIC ME-ME-ME, Scrooge-like capitalism for that also (as opposed to healthy capitalism – of the Quakers, say) as well.
October 17, 2023
Yes. Let’s start with the ones pushing the Net Zero lunacy, which is what they use to justify their anti-car policies.
October 16, 2023
But are the councils doing it with the collusion of various firms?
Usually some sort of work is actually going on but is now very protracted.
There are lots of temporary traffic lights with no work going on at all.
Here however in the past 20 or so years they have actually permanently closed a couple of useful roads for good.
For years now we have noticed how new estates have really, really narrow roads and thought it was so builders could fit max houses in. Had no idea “developers” wanted to save the planet!
October 16, 2023
@EH; Narrow roads, small gardens, compound carparking, all have been used for years by builders of new estates to maximize their profits, less space used on infrastructure mean more properties to sell at a 50-75% mark-up on actual build cost.
October 16, 2023
++
How to get rich eh?
On top of that business where land never even appears on the open market and then is sold for a song!
October 17, 2023
jerry, wasn’t the small gardens, compound car parking, high-density policy instruction from Prescott’s housing plans back in 2000?
October 17, 2023
@a-tracy; Not in my opinion. Change might have been piecemeal before Prescott’s ‘big bang’ changes but there was still change. I could go into more detail about 1950s to 1980s estate designs but brevity calls, do you own research using online estate agents and google satellite imagery… 🙂
October 16, 2023
“Why do these Councils hate us so much?” – they have bought the climate change panic, the anti-capitalism ethos, and enjoy controlling citizens’ lives, just like central government, alas.
October 16, 2023
Councils do not hate us, the govt does. The Tory govt,acts through the councils. The Tory govt has a Secretary of State and force councils to do what the govt wants. Another pass the blame, this wrong, odd. It is the govt! JR k owns full well Boles changed the planning legislation 8n 2010, JR knows Javid did not honour community charge freeze, JR knows his govt and party over loaded councils with the Tory govt mass immigration policy forcing councils to effectively charge us more to accommodate them!! JR knows the EA quango is useless and should be scrapped, instead we pay for the quango and had an increase in community charge when some of it work was passed back to,
councils! Same for social adult care. The Tory govt made many promises about adult social care reform then decided not to do anything they promised and charge us more through our community charge as we l,as sell our houses!! Not councils, but govt hates us.
October 16, 2023
@formula57; Not sure there’s much “anti-capitalism ethos” in the climate change panic, not at least here in the UK, some of the biggest advocates for Net-zero appear to be the big private energy & chemical companies, with other companies also cashing in, selling solar panels to anyone willing to have them on their roofs, vastly over priced heat-pumps at £10k+ for the average detached family home, even ‘smart’ thermostats, and now car companies are pushing to sell us all useless EVs at a premium, and let’s not forget the smart meter, imposed on most, not because they save energy but because it saves the billing companies employing meter-readers.
Where are all the anti-capitalist, state subsidized, not-for-profit, products please?!
October 17, 2023
@ jerry – anti-capitalism does not make products so there are no examples to quote to you. The anti-capitalism ethos is amply shown in the efforts of the climate change alarmism that sees attacks on industries that provide us with livelihoods and well-being. It is shown to in councils’ petty traffic restrictions hampering business deliveries to which Sir John refers. Certainly some capitalists exxploit for their own purposes the green movement; that is only to be expected.
October 17, 2023
@formula57 “anti-capitalism does not make products”
Funny that, the old GDR, the USSR, made many products, they even sold them to the west, undercutting the capitalist competition, as does China today. Net-zero is an opportunity for capitalism not seen since the immediate post WW2 period. If the Warsaw block was still in existence do you think eastern Europe would be a worrying about CO2, no they would be digging out and burning their Lignite, just as China burns its own coal, to make “save the world” products for capitalists to sell to us, the sheeple! I suspect our captains of industry are quite happy for the BBC to broadcast a daily climate scare story during prime time news, fear sells…
“the climate change alarmism that sees attacks on industries that provide us with livelihoods”
Apart from unthinking extremists, likes of ‘Just Stop Oil’, are the average CO2 alarmist attacking the industries that provide employment or just what and how the industry operates? I suspect many left-wing climate change alarmists would welcome greater localism, being able to walk/cycle to work (like we used to), rather than commute by car to a consolidated mega factory or office, they want to see less ‘air miles’, so far from attacking industries that provide us with our livelihoods they actually want to see more opportunity.
October 16, 2023
Sir John, you ask why local councils are reducing our road space. Surely the answer is because they are getting a lot of money from your Tory government to carry out these highway projects. There’s plenty of money available, it seems: £200 million of government funding for cycling and walking schemes, intended to promote ‘healthy travel’ and reduce CO2 ’emissions’. Of this latest tranche, £606,000 is going to Wokingham Borough. Here’s what the Transport Secretary Mark Harper says: “We want to make sure everyone across the country can choose cheaper, greener and healthier travel, while we continue to support our local businesses and grow the economy.” You must see him from time to time. Could you possibly ask him how restricting working people’s ability to get to a job will help to grow the economy? Not to mention the other very valid points you raise.
Reply The Council designs the scheme and applies for money. They should design driver friendly schemes that add extra capacity for bikes on safe routes
October 16, 2023
Indeed Hat Man – and to reply:- Yes they should but they so rarely do so.
October 16, 2023
Lifelogic
Indeed the LibDems Councillors in Wokingham are looking at more and more Cycle schemes because they have been given Government grants (over £500,000) to fund such research and promote such schemes, see Johns recent posting under “local issues” for more info, and my response to his post.
October 16, 2023
“We want to make sure everyone across the country can “choose” cheaper, greener and healthier travel” by choose he means can be “forced to”
Well cycling is about 25 times more dangerous per mile in cities and cycling and walking also produce CO2. On a meat diet walking can be worse per mile than driving in a small car in CO2 terms.
But then Mark Harper does not do logic it seems yet another PPE graduate. The government web site lies/misleads that “walking and cycling produce no CO2 per mile direct or indirect”. So are they liars or just totally deluded fools – what fuels walking/cycling but steak and chips or similar human fuel?
Not a very efficient fuel you will find. If it were we could design steak and chip fuelled cars.
October 17, 2023
Are you for real, LL? Are you telling us that car drivers don’t eat? And that cars come all shaped from heavens without any industrial process producing CO2 to make them?
October 16, 2023
Sir John,
These hare brained schemes are reflected around the Country usually hidden in Environmental bunting but really to curb the use of the ICE under their net zero religion. We have the unwanted but imposed by Tory Mayor of the South West, Dan Norris, a failed Labour MP, trying to impose bus lanes, cycle paths, footpaths the reduce the size and free flow of traffic local to and from Bristol/Bath at huge expense. Wants to devote one carriageway each way on a local dual carriageway to bus lanes. This will allow no traffic at any time on one carriageway each way. Cycle paths and footpaths to nowhere. FFS. Call me a cynic but this Tory imposed useless mayor, a failed no nothing social worker, dictating the local economy all supported by the Tory Climate Change Committee at great cost and inconvenience to normal, disabled and the elderly. Please OWN THIS Sir John. It’s YOUR Governments policy after 13.5 years.
October 16, 2023
Fully Agree
October 16, 2023
Reply to reply: Dangle half a million pounds under a council’s nose and they’re going to refuse it? I don’t think so.
October 16, 2023
I fully agree with the points raised. However, council spending on non-essentials (often left wing work shops and other assorted minority pressure groups jamborees) while pleading poverty and pointing the finger at central government is nothing new.
The issue is why is it allowed to go on.
Much of the money being wasted on the anti-car hysteria is in line with the governments own net zero religious dogma, so perhaps this time the councils are not entirely at fault.
October 16, 2023
Indeed it is driven by Central Government and the deluded Net Zero Religion.
October 16, 2023
Due to a cycle lane my high street is now a single one-way carriageway. With bus stops. So emergency vehicles have to wait. We could at least make cyclists pay something towards all these schemes being implemented for them. Like a road fund license, insurance, and a cycling theory test to teach them that red means stop rather than keep going.
October 16, 2023
I think they already know that “red means stop” but they also know no one ever enforces it – other than for car drivers who can be mugged using cameras.
October 16, 2023
They built many cycle lanes in my local area, and nobody uses them (and I mean no one) ….and guess what, they’re going to build more this year, no assessment no research no consultantion because its central government money and a tick in the box for the government enforced local net-zero plan
October 16, 2023
Glen
Typical of many Councils, including Wokingham.
We already have two cycle lanes, one each way on the A329 and the Council are looking to replace them with miniature cycle roads with raised curbs to separate them from the road.
I live on that road and you can guarantee that more than 20 journeys a day 10 each way are completed on the existing cycle lanes, cyclists still use the path or the road, and are often cycling against the flow of traffic when on the path.
Simple way to make the existing cycling lanes safer, is to repair the potholes, level off the existing sunken drains, and sweep them of debris for time-time (fewer punctures) etc
October 17, 2023
Cycle lanes are often not swept and kept clear of debris and are often left to allow grass and soil to make it much narrower. This pushes cyclists onto busy roads that are busier because the cycle lanes took their space. If there is a cycle lane the cycle should be unable to use the driver lane. Often though they have to because of broken bottles.
October 16, 2023
The agenda is road blocking, deterring movement and motorist mugging. Cambridge even has car catcher devices on bus lanes to catch those who get confused (often even writing off the cars in the process).
If you restrict one lane to buses and perhaps taxis you hugely restrict the road capacity by forcing circa 90% of the traffic to use 50% of the road. Why on earth are taxis allow to use bus lanes anyway when a taxis is just a far less efficient car in every way (fuel, co2, road use per useful mile…) than is a private car? This as taxis spend half their time travelling empty or parked on the road just waiting around and they need a full time professional driver with all their energy needs.
So up to 1500 cars in Luton airport fire ‘unlikely to be salvageable’. Still no confirmation it was a Hybrid battery fire (why not?) as yet – but this seems rather likely. say £10,000 each that is £60 million or so down the drain in cars, building and and airport disruption plus and a great deal of CO2 to build all the replacements. Let us hope they are replaced with petrol or diesel cars.
One study, using the average CO2 output of the European electricity network, concluded that an electric car using a 60kWh battery made in Europe would have to travel some 700,000 kilometres before it is lower in CO2 than an average petrol car. Keeping your old petrol car rather than comparing with a new petrol car makes these figures even worse. Not that CO2 is really a causing any climate emergency anyway.
But the claim that EVs save CO2 is bogus especially as we have so little spare low CO2 electricity.
October 16, 2023
As things stand, EV’s are about 100% fossil fuel powered. That is because we rarely have any spare renewable electricity available at any given time, and an EV is an ADDITIONAL load to what we had previously. The only way of meeting additional load is to ramp up the gas turbines.
Using the “average mix” of electricity sources is a con, until such time as we have 100% low carbon generation with sufficient capacity at all times.
October 16, 2023
Indeed EVs are emissions elsewhere cars at the mining of materials, in manufacture of car and battery, at the power stations and in extra tyre and road wear due to extra weight.
October 16, 2023
That is an easy one.
It is because the councils’ permanent staff, (not the elected representatives) are public sector workers. They hate the private sector for being productive/independent. Any method. or rules, or systems of approval they have control of, they use to block entrepreneurialism and capitalism in particular.
The Long March Through the Institutions has been achieved. The long march back to freedom needs to begin.
October 16, 2023
Indeed hence they like to kill fair competition in healthcare, long term care, schools, transport, BBC broadcasting… they cannot compete if there is fair competition.
October 16, 2023
But your government funded councils to pit LTNs in and fill in bus bays. You’re still forcing EVs on us although they’re 50% heavier and burn down structure. Too late now to wash your hands of them, you’ve had 14 years.
October 16, 2023
Correct
October 16, 2023
Councils are applying the Legislation and the powers they have been given by Parliament. They have also been applying the Government’s policy of encouraging (ie coercing) “active travel” ie encouraging people to walk and cycle by making it harder to get anywhere by car.
This has resulted in the creation of pointless cycle lanes around the country, by pinching road space from the existing road and which often begin and end abruptly and are just a painted line on the tarmac. But they tick a box on the DfT’s targets.
Perhaps Sir John could remind me who voted for Sustrans, a cycling Charity-Quango which is funded directly by the DfT? They’ve received £77 million of taxpayers money since 2019.
https://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-blog/news/2022/may/department-for-transport-announces-vital-funding-for-the-national-cycle-network
Why do these Councils hate us so much? Why do they send taxpayers huge bills for making life more difficult? Why do they want the Uk to be less competitive? Why are they so anti work?
Possibly because they are taking their cue from the Government?
On the basis of the Covid Tyranny and the Net Zero Lunacy, the same question applies to Parliament. Why do MPs and members of the House of Frauds hate us so much?
October 16, 2023
JR: “Destroying our roads”
Government can not, or will not maintain basic infrastructure.
But still insists that we need thousands of ‘new arrivals’ each year. Often accommodated in luxury four star hotels, or in rental accommodation at the public expense. It’s unlikely these people will ever be tax positive, a lot of them disappear into the black economy at the same time as exploiting the tax system for ‘freebies’
JR: “Why do these Councils hate us so much?”
Yes, why does our government hate us so much ?
October 16, 2023
Not thousands. 1.2 million visas last year alone plus over 40,000 illegals placed in 4* Hotels whilst our own people are accommodated on the ………..streets or inferior accommodation. We expect more record numbers in a few weeks. These large numbers of immigrants don’t have a carbon footprint or the provision of any other health, housing, energy, transport or public service needs so they won’t hinder English taxpayers.
The Tory’s record on immigration, taxes, welfare spending etc are far worse than Labour, but they gave us Gay marriage, foreign aid, lots of non Equality legislation but they are conservative and I have a nice new shiny bridge to sell you.
October 16, 2023
Around Wokingham I notice steps are now being taken to mow weed infested areas and verges, and cuttings blown off paving, where not so long ago re-wilding was in vogue. Is this a U-turn after outraged public opinion, or are the contractors now cheaper?
October 16, 2023
Possibly because there is no repercussions of doing a bad job other than not being elected again? If I do a bad job, or one that delivers what my client didn’t ask for, or what I was not contracted to deliver, I don’t get paid. Perhaps if all elected officials need to put up a financial guarantee when being elected, and at the end of their term, another vote is held as to whether they get it back, it would mean they have a stake in the outcome of decisions they make while in office.
If I had to stake £50-100k deposit and have a requirement to justify all decisions while in office, I would think twice on spending taxpayers money on frivolous things, and would be looking for fat to trim off the budget as a priority to ensure I could get enough votes to ensure I got my money back. Stuff like adult social care would be scaled back, as would needless HR roles. Stuff like road repair would be more of a priority.
October 16, 2023
@Aaron; But who judges all that, easy for your one-on-one clients, not so easy for local politicians and the electorate. A scheme in one neighborhood might be highly popular with those who live there, but very unpopular with the transient population of another who merely want to pass through but have more votes to unseat a politico or deign their deposit refund.
It would also turn the democratic clock back decades, if not a century and more, only wealthy people, or those with organized backing (such as political parties or trade unions) would be able to stand for election, good-bye Mr Average standing for a seat.
October 16, 2023
@jerry. You raise valid points. I was more thinking of mechanisms to increase responsibility and accountability to the public sector for allowing or overseeing work that negatively impacts the majority of people. If the elected official proposed and implemented changing a weekly bin service to fortnightly, without getting buy in from the majority of people they were elected to serve, they do so knowing the financial loss that would result. However, if they got sufficient consensus beforehand, and implemented it, come the deposit review, they could point to each decision, and the result of the voter participation that supported the decision.
In simple terms, imagine the Swiss referendum system coupled with TV voting for everything. We have the technology. If someone wants the power and authority of public office, they have to ensure they represent the majority of voters, or they get penalised.
Hell, I’d loan myself £50k to be part of the trial solution to see if it works for Wokingham borough. The deposit ensures accountability and ensures the greater good for the greatest number of people.
October 17, 2023
@Aaron; “In simple terms, imagine the Swiss referendum system coupled with TV voting for everything.”
Blind people often do not own TVs, many people do not own/use computers, technology can be hacked, and what voter threshold would be set, even the Swiss get referendum apathy.
Stop trying to reinvent the wheel, for one I want our politicos to do the right thing, sometimes they *have* to make unpopular choices, and what if the real problem is a lack of participation by the electorate (coupled to an over reaction by a minority of NIMBYs) which results in wrong decisions being made. I once attended a local road improvement planning meeting, circulars put through all the relevant doors in the neighborhood etc, I attended, as did TWO others, yet many in the neighborhood now say the wrong choices were made…
October 16, 2023
When we add the tendency of the police to close a road at the drop of the hat, on the pretence that every incident is a potential crime scene (more likely because their highest priority is to cover their backside), we have a perfect storm.
Although the “public sector equality duty” embedded within the Equality Act is an unwanted toxic Blair years legacy, it does suggest a precedent for a more welcome “public sector freedom of movement duty”, whereby the overriding objective was to keep roads open and unimpeded save for exceptionally good reasons. If only we had a right of centre party who could pledge such legislation.
October 16, 2023
Councils need reform, starting with the Reform Party.
October 16, 2023
“Why do these Councils hate [motorists] so much?”
This is nothing new, there has been a general move towards ‘hating us’ for a good four decades now, at the behest of central govts supporting inappropriate changes to speed limits that were then enforced by -often hidden- speed cameras, width restrictions that send anything much wider than a MPV size of vehicle on a long detour, all have been around and approved by the DfT since the early 1990s at least, as have empty bus lanes, inappropriate Red Routes, both of which stop kerbside waiting/loading, and then there are the extra taxes & burdensome regulation that have been imposed; how many sole traders were affected back in 1979-80 by the removal of the Light Goods VED class, or garage proprietors having to both register and tax their recovery vehicles.
The real question is, why are some Westminster politicos and advisors only now appalled?
October 16, 2023
OT; When the UK send foreign criminal serving prison sentences in the UK back to their own country is there any certainty that such prisoners will remain in prison, will such prisoners be (in effect) swapped for UK nationals serving prison sentences in that country and if so are such swaps on a like-for-like category, does such a policy actually allow the UK prison population to fall significantly.
Is it not time the Home Office sorts out the root problem, the massive number of low-risk criminals who should never have been sent to prison (not even as a suspended sentence), or crimes that have had their sentence tariffs increased, often simply due to a minority of the public who wish to see retribution, not just due punishment. The Home office appears increasingly rudderless & reactionary. Our host asked the other day if Brexit had failed, well it has certainly failed to stop the small boats, failed to take back control of our borders, but what did anyone who understood the ‘Dublin Convention’ expect?!
October 16, 2023
It is pretty clear that any money given to local councils for “pothole repair” does not get spent on repairing them. So it is utterly meaningless when the Government announces “One Billion for the repair of potholes”, as we all know it won’t happen. Councils that do not take the repair of potholes seriously should be fully liable for any repairs to damaged vehicles, no ifs, no buts about it. The money was forthcoming, if they choose to waste that money on other things, that is their problem, I don’t see why motorists who have damaged caused should be out of pocket, or have insurance premiums rise due to repairs, for something that isn’t their fault.
Also regarding parking charges,
Who within the Wokingham BC Lib Dem administration had the “bright idea” to raise parking charges and abolish the free parking on Sundays?
All I have seen is a decline in the areas affected. Woodley prescient is barely hanging on nowadays, yet the idiots at Wokingham BC decided to raise parking charges to one pound an hour. Abolishing the popular half hour parking option, for those who just needed to pop in for something.
Yet in nearby Henley-On-Thames you one hour free, then two hours at £1.80 and three at £2.40. Marlow is also similarly priced at 90p for the first hour, then £1.50 for two hours and £2.40 for three.
These areas make Wokingham Borough look expensive for parking and does nothing to help the struggling town centres affected – Wokingham, Woodley and Twyford.
Whilst Waitrose may have deep enough pockets to compensate their customers for their parking charges, this is not true of the many independent retailers.
Visiting Dinton Pastures, or California Country Park by car now costs £2 an hour. These rates are hardly encouraging people to visit these areas!
October 16, 2023
Dinton provides wonderful walks, free child safe play areas, mown areas for football, and other fee-based water themed sports.
At £2 per hour a helluva good deal.
Hands up who enjoys shopping in Wokingham, after the parking hassle?
October 16, 2023
Like they’ve done with cigarettes & beer, just price the ICE cars off the road
October 16, 2023
Hi sir John
On top of all that you describe we have to pay road tax, they are still not repairing the pot holes I live in sutton coldfield got no chance Birmingham city have wasted our tax they are encouraging traffic to use side roads ( RAT RUNS) turning residential streets into mini motorways no concerns over the pollution in noise and exhaust fumes.
Thanks
October 16, 2023
They do it because they can, and are allowed to.
Just look at the confusion of ULEZ areas with different rules in different locations.
Our smaller second car is compliant in Portsmouth and Bath, but not in Bristol or London !
We now have local Councils (Wokingham being one) being allowed to monitor and fine cars for moving traffic offences caught on camera.
Bristol has a plethora of ever changing speed limits in the city enforced by camera, but usually with only one warning sign that the limit has changed, miss that sign because you are looking out for hazards in a busy City Centre, and you are unaware, indeed our cars electronic Dashboard says one speed limit applies, the single street sign says another, doubtless because the new speed limit has not been registered long enough, for the cars software upgrade to be produced and updated.
Meanwhile potholes spread like a plague across the nations roads, which make expensive repairs necessary if you are unfortunate to hit a bad one when it’s dark and wet. Hardly a green policy when you need to replace a nearly new tyre with another or even worse a wheel and suspension parts.
Modern LED street lights do not light up the streets at all, they are like stars in the sky.
Then we have endless signs in outer London streets saying controlled parking areas, or controlled entry, what the hell are they all about.
All of these signs all of this damage.
Then we have so called clean air Zones where the limit is 20mph but you use twice as much fuel because you are in a lower gear so do more revs per mile, and so produce more pollution that if it was 30mph.
At 20mph you spend more time looking at the speedo than the road for fear of being fined, so hows that safer for anyone !
I could carry on, but rant over for now.!
October 16, 2023
Well maybe because Central Government is funding much of this cycle mania Sir john.
Take for example Wokingham (now under Lib Dem control) who have just spent £606,000 of Governments “Active Travel” funds to ‘Design’ (nothing has been actually built yet) a 1.6 mile cycling and walking route on the main road between Wokingham and Winnersh. I drove down it Friday. There already seems to be quite adequate pavement and for most of the way there are already cycle lanes on both sides (with not one bicycle in sight for the whole 1.6 miles). The road is two way and the current limit is 40mph, perfectly safe for a dead straight main road with good visibility. The actual building of the route will also be funded by Government at goodness knows how much cost.
Meanwhile I’m getting constant ‘Community Update’ emails from the Council pleading extreme poverty, whilst also informing me of the latest ‘social’ spending being funded by (for example cut backs in rubbish collection). But getting back to your original point – much of this war against the cyclist seems to be funded by Central Government. Stop giving these people “free” money and they might stop spending it on useless cycle lanes
Reply It is the Council that designs bad schemes and applies for the money. They do not need to claim any, or they could design schemes which are friendly to drivers as well
October 16, 2023
SirJ doesn’t every council have to produce (in law) a net-zero plan and an associated scheme for achieving those targets (many, nay all, of which are enforced central government policy)
October 16, 2023
Even more stupid is the fact that this A329 Reading Road stretch badly needs areas of pothole repairs, cycling provision already more than adequate, but very lightly used.
October 16, 2023
John, I totally agree with you. Councils spend millions of pounds I each Borough, making life more costly, life harder and transport of people and goods more difficult and costly. Simultaneously, they claim that they are somehow doing a public good, and have not enough funds for actual services the public need. Nonetheless, parliament is not immune with Net Zero laws making life more costly and harder for no benefit at all, a renters reform bill to make being a private landlord a loss making endeavor and so push up rental costs too, an energy bill that criminalises not complying with the climate religion and an online safety bill that empowers the police to chase after mean tweets or take unfavoured broadcasters off air. All very dystopian and disappointing.
October 16, 2023
08.50
Possibly because they have swallowed the bait of nett zero and think that while saving the planet they can financially feed off the satanic motorist private and commercial. Their responsibilities for roads at all levels should be severely constrained. We are in desperate need of a national programme of renewal. The dreadful state of them will not be corrected by local government. Realise it is part of a general decline in infrastructure and services which your government have presided over for over a decade while glorying in virtue projects like HS2 that will offer no beneficial qualities to the popumation as a whole. The inmates are running the assylum.
October 16, 2023
If you are a small trader needing to park in a restricted area, there are two solutions: refuse to service customers in such areas, or add the costs, including time wasted, specifically to your invoice. If people can’t learn from listening, they need to be taught through consequences.
October 16, 2023
“Why are they so anti work ?” Leftism is a mental illness. That’s why.
October 16, 2023
They want everyone to work from home.
15 min cities.
Not sure they have thought through the details though….like getting food delivered etc.
October 16, 2023
I’ve discussed this with my local council and councillors on many occasions, and they reply by saying that the road redesigns, traffic calming & cycle lanes are part of the imposed net-zero government plans and in the main with induce grants and other funding from central government ….don’t make out that this is a local government initiative it’s a Tory government net-zero plan & policy
October 16, 2023
How on earth can ‘road redesigns, traffic calming & cycle lanes are part of the imposed net-zero government plan’?
Does all this C02 producing work miraculously get done without it?
October 16, 2023
Ah the point isn’t reducing measureable co2 ….its getting the big net-zero tick in the box
October 16, 2023
Good questions. On Friday the 13th we came across an extreme example on the A478 in Wales. There the contractor resurfacing the road deemed it necessary not only to put in traffic lights to control the free lane (very sensible), but also to insist on a 10mph convoy led by a car and driver up and down the c100+ yards of restricted road (totally unnecessary). The said convoy car had to do make a 360 degree turn in a confined space by each set of traffic lights before the traffic queue could move. It is one of the most absurd arrangements I have ever seen the convoy car carried a flashing light on its eof and a large red sign on the back. It looked like the contemporary equivalent of a man with a red flag.
October 16, 2023
@David Andrews; Given so many car drivers, even some HGV drivers, refuse to drive at an appropriate speed for such conditions, or to obey temporary speed limits put in place at work sites to protect highly vulnerable operatives etc, I am not at all surprised H&S officers have come to using escort vehicles to enforce the speed limit and act as *obstruction look-out* observers. I can only assume you have never had to work alongside a live lane with only painted lines and plastic bollards for protection, it is terrifying to think of the carnage that could happen, and has done, because just of one unthinking motorist, perhaps whilst being more interested in the car audio system, or a hands-free phone call…
October 16, 2023
Sir John
Then relate this situation to the decline in the High Street and these Councils don’t see the correlation. Less commercial activity equals less local income.
I am reminded of a discussion had at a local council meeting(Wokingham) when some thought it would be the thing to introduce parking wardens. At the time it was dismissed as not worth the effort and costs for so little reward.
Often forgotten these penalty collectors, or even just car park machines are outside agencies. The Council just get a commission not the fee charged. Not Wokingham, but not so far away an outside parking agency is now collecting fees and presumably selling the personal data(you have to sign up for their App just to park) from people parking in a ‘Lay-By’ on a busy trunk road the A30. You are now charged for having a break or breaking down!
So much madness and lunacy brought to you by a Conservative Government that is refusing to manage
October 16, 2023
@Ian B; Traffic claiming is not causing a decline in the High Street, the horse had already bolted, as with Main Street in the USA, it’s the out of town shopping areas and now online.
October 16, 2023
They are not anti work so much as fully involved in the climate change scam. Many councils have signed up to organisations like UK100 which aim to lead a rapid transition to Net Zero with Clean Air in their communities ahead of the government’s legal target. So they won’t let those nasty cars and vans in their area if they can help it.
October 16, 2023
I wish there was an anti-netzero party
October 16, 2023
Why have these councils been given so much autonomy to abuse & waste taxpayers money? Where is the auditing, the transparency & the prosecution’s for mismanagement of funds.
None of these Draconian measures have been approved by the people! It’s not acceptable on any level.
It’s time to remove excessive powers from all councils. They need to serve the people not fleece the people!
October 16, 2023
+++++
Now THAT would be VERY interesting to know.
To what extent to they have discretion?
What exactly is in their remit?
Where can we find out?
October 16, 2023
It’s the other way round. Central government makes money available for traffic limiting schemes -it’s there for the asking. For other things, councils have had their money cut. But there are grants from central government for anti-car schemes.
October 16, 2023
Transport for the North – https://transportforthenorth.com/
‘’Our Transport Decarbonisation Strategy sets out the decarbonisation trajectory for the North with the aim of reaching a regional near-zero carbon surface transport network by 2045.’’
I wonder which government created and funds this quango that represents over 20 local authorities in the north of England ….Oh its the Tory government
October 17, 2023
@Jude; “None of these Draconian measures have been approved by the people!”
The problem is not just with Local Authorities, I wonder how many Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, Johnson era headline polices would have survived had each been subjected to individual referendums, not just a broad brush choice at the general elections…
October 16, 2023
You get what you vote for.
October 16, 2023
Unfortunately voter do NO “get what they vote for”.
As too many canvasees say:
“It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the Government/Council always gets back in”.
See my later post for an explanation of decision-making in Councils – led by Officers.
October 16, 2023
no we don’t – they make all sorts of decisions that were NOT reported in their campaigning.
October 16, 2023
Because they have a common purpose to implement UN Agendas, leading beyond authority.
October 16, 2023
I’ve been subjected to a couple of those “leading beyond authority” events.
Very scary.
You really feel as if you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.
October 16, 2023
Why doesn’t central govt act to restrict their powers?
October 16, 2023
Totally in cahoots I daresay!
Prob doing the bidding?
October 16, 2023
Somebody once asked why it is that socialists always feel the need to destroy what’s there, and to replace it with their idealism?
We have all of our public organisations infiltrated with socialists, all our criticisms… they aren’t important. Imposing their ideals is all that counts.
October 16, 2023
Quite agree. How about time and fuel wasted by carers trying to visit vulerable people, with road users being forced to go round and round in circles trying to get somewhere. Even in small Wokingham you need an up to date map of roads to work out how to get from A to B, which goes further, takes longer, uses up more fuel and causes more pollution than just going the obvious way..
October 16, 2023
‘There is little thought for ambulances…’
Or bus passengers harmed by a 30 mph to 20 mph drop adding time to the passenger’s journey. It can complicate the timetable, e.g. it’s no longer ’42 minutes past’ at a given stop. It can also mean fewer buses in the day.
‘Why do these Councils hate us so much?’
They don’t. But look to their incentives and constraints. Their incentives are:
– To show change to the electorate as change could be good, no change asks why are they needed
– To demand and take more funding because this allows more change and more bungs to the electorate. As MPs take more funding from expanding the money supply.
– To placate the noisy minority demanding pointless sacrifice for the ‘climate emergency’. These are often public-sector workers or retirees or pseudo ones in the voluntary sector who view council action as good.
The council suffers little direct impact from the harm to the plumber’s productivity. Nor from the lack of visiting footfall for the town.
The road system is a prime showcase for their powers given their constraints.
October 16, 2023
Councils are run by the wrong people – hence the many errors of judgement . Each month I pay almost £300 tax in the area I live in South Oxfordshire and the only visible benefit I receive is the weekly collection of household garbage . The road through my village is – and has been full of pot-holds for over 20 years ; local schools have been turned down for extensions in spite of the enormous increase in the local population and the surgery announced it cannot accept more patients . What a mess !.
October 16, 2023
It is time we took to the streets – really genuinely, we should, we must.
Councils and governments do not damn well care. They only say they do.
Even those claim to care are of limited influence and are easily ignored by those above them.
October 16, 2023
And unless i’m mistaken, a lot of new 20mph zones have appeared in your area recently. I don’t recall them being there pre-Covid…?
October 16, 2023
‘’Spotlight Automotive is a joint venture between Great Wall Motor and BMW. The new MINI Cooper is expected to enter the global market in the first half of 2024.’’ https://carnewschina.com/2023/10/14/made-in-china-mass-produced-electric-mini-cooper-rolled-off-assembly-line-market-entry-in-2024/?fbclid=IwAR3xp_k4CCxNNUpRnKjitToUGgKPUhLn521040Gopq-RuklWe2vpQuIiW3Y
The new EV is to be made in China, so the ‘green’ jobs going to China and not the UK ….thank god we have net-zero and cycle lanes
October 17, 2023
So we become like 1970s Beijing!
October 16, 2023
Who CONTROLS our streets might be a pertinent question à ce moment?!!
And WHAT is the dear govt. going to do about THAT?
Same as our borders?
October 16, 2023
Apparently in Cambridgeshire a council has created ( LITERALLY) an elephant trap ( big hole) in a bus lane which cars fall down into and get wrecked. Buses can circumnavigate.
And the govt. allows this?
October 16, 2023
actually a wide diagonal trench in a bus only lane, but deep enough to mean a car or van wheel will drop a foot in, trapping the vehicle. Wide enough for bus axles to avoid the pit.
October 16, 2023
There is also an electric sign on a road near us with varying patronising and unhelpful messages like “Is your journey necessary?”.
Are they deliberately trying to annoy us? They are flaunting how much of our money they can waste.
They seem to act like children.
October 16, 2023
might have been worse – ‘should you have walked?’
October 16, 2023
Lack of accountability to Ward Councillors is a big factor.
They have no decision-making powers – and the (Labour-devised) system is stacked against them.
Since the Local Govt. Act 2000 decisions are either Delegated to council officers – or the legal responsibility of the Council Leader (a 2008 amendment – who usually delegates to a handful of Portfolio Holders).
In many Councils, Councillors are too deferential to their local Sir Humphreys – so reluctant to challenge.
Too many Portfolio Holders listen to Officials advising them to “stick to strategic decisions”.
Thus the onus is on each Ward Councillor to “call-in” any traffic proposal of concern.
Sometimes that “call-in” procedure requires support from 2 or more other Councillors. Tricky in a single Councillor Ward !
Scrutiny Committees can only “Recommend” to a PH.
It takes a robust, lone PH to stand up to a groups of Officers all warning “Is that Wise Councillor” ?
The sooner Councils return to Committee Decision-making – the sooner the grip of Officialdom can be loosened.
October 16, 2023
We had a local by-election recently for our councillor. I’m not impressed by the range of candidates. They generally seemed to have their own particular agendas, one wanting yet another pedestrian crossing no more than 100 yards from where there are already two, on the main road through.
I imagine with all their pet projects, these councillors end up fighting like cats in a barrel.
I would have liked to have voted for a candidate who would work towards reducing council waste, so I ended up not voting at all.
At the general election, I like to vote for a worthy candidate, even though they don’t have a hope of being elected. On this occasion, I didn’t even have that option.
October 16, 2023
Sir John, a big part of the problem is that your government gives councils money ear-marked to pay for car limiting schemes. Reportedly Grant Shapps, when he was transport minister, was screaming down the phone at councils telling them to get a move on and put in the bus lanes for which the government made money available.
October 16, 2023
The same Grant Shapps who ‘instructed’ the Mayor of London the do ULEZ
October 16, 2023
Perhaps Sir John, they do what they are told to do by the WEF, the UN, the WHO and any other parties interested in making our lives more restricted, more controlled, more miserable. I believe the infiltration of our government goes far beyond Westminster.
The reasons are always that it is for our safety, our health and lest we forget, the climate and the environment. But, isn’t totalitarianism always about those things?
As Neil Oliver says. “It’s never about what they say it’s about”.
October 16, 2023
Your party have known roads are bad for years now. Why give the money to incompetent councils to fix them? Wouldn’t having an England pothole squad that government controls over regions where local councils are failing, would be a lower cost?
Councils give people months, MONTHS to close lanes off, one near me didn’t even start work on that section for six weeks after the cones went up. There is no demand the roads are replaced to the same standard they were dug up so pot holes open up shortly after builders on new estates move off, another one near me only finished building a month ago, and now a big pothole has started on a section of road they dug up right at the estate entrance, by Christmas it will be awful.
I was delighted with the council fixing a pavement I told them I’d fallen and injured myself; however, right next to the hole I reported is another hole they just left, so the tarmac people were there; the repair is a good repair anyone with a pair of eyes can see the other deep pothole also required filling, its this sort of silliness I can’t abide.
October 16, 2023
Dear Mr. Redwood,
It might well be that the council designs the schemes and applies for the money but does that mean the government takes little interest in what these schemes are intended to achieve? Does the government just dispense millions of pounds without looking into how they fit into its overarching national transport objectives? I doubt it.
In Oxford, the county council set up six LTN’s with £3 million from the Government after ministers announced an “active travel” scheme meant to encourage walking and cycling to combat Covid-19 in 2020.
A joint report by the local bus service providers said “If the intention of the measures was to reduce the impact of car traffic on mobility and the public realm, it must surely be judged to have failed, and seriously so.” It adds: “The intention of LTNs to make walking more attractive has not been achieved; rather the evidence suggests that the contrary is true.” The report criticises the council for ploughing ahead at “great speed” for the “near-complete removal of motorised traffic from inner areas of the city” but “with no material consideration of likely wider effects”.
In short a disaster.
Most of us would agree that councils should design driver friendly schemes that add extra capacity for bikes on safe routes – but they don’t and I don’t think you can absolve central government for its role in making our lives more difficult.
October 16, 2023
Aided and abetted by the Gov. who also wish to stop the Plebs from owning a car.
October 16, 2023
Why?
It creates jobs and builds empires and by implementing Net Zero leads to impoverishment and the excuse to introduce authoritarian controls with the rationing of food, energy, heating and transport.
October 16, 2023
The whole anti-car lobby needs to forced into having a rethink.
By the time we are all forced into EVs there will no longer be any justification for being against personal transportation, if the cars are as green as the extremists claim.
Journeys in cities might still be a problem with traffic, but medium length trips and those in the rural community are far more efficiently conducted in cars. Cars are hugely more convenient than trains, as you can go direct to your ultimate destination and most important, new roads cost a fraction of the price of railway lines to construct.
I would put no more money into rail because of the ridiculous cost per mile, but build more roads which will be used by far more people. For long distance transport, coaches using dedicated lanes that can be recharged via under-road cables can carry far more people per hour than trains at a fraction of the cost. When they reach a town or city, they can be powered by the onboard batteries to go in and out of the town centre. Eventually, they can become driverless.
Of course, the agenda of the most extreme climate warriors is to deprive us of all forms of personal mobility except a bike, but they can safely be ignored, or left sitting on a motorway gantry in the rain.
October 16, 2023
It’s not just that councils have endless money for reducing the roads pace for vans, delivery Lorries and cars, or taking away parking spaces, implementing more useless cycle lanes while stealing space from other road users, they are well on their way to putting 15 minute cities in place.
My council frequently sends out consultations, but I have yet to see any road reduction plans reeled back.
Even when surveys are done, they are phrased in such a ways that it is hard to vote against the proposals.
It is very clear why they are allowing roads to deteriorate while leaving normal footpaths in a dangerous state. We can se where they are taking us.
October 16, 2023
Much as I like the line, ‘Why do Councils hate us so much?’ and may quote it in my many complaints and frustrations over Councils, with Councils I think in reality it is not actually hatred but what they think is their supposed collective prerogative to dominate and get their own way.
Within modern human society money and personal wealth has often come to be of overriding importance but in the absence of money (and Council officials are on fixed incomes) in primitive societies and in the animal kingdom the struggles are primarily for ‘dominance’. It is that primitive yet basic desire for ‘dominance’ that is so often the underlying motivation of public sector officials.
October 16, 2023
‘’Destroying our roads’’
For all the tarmac, concrete kerbing and paint used building new cycle lanes, street calming and signage they could’ve spent half the money repairing every pot-hole in Britain ….reducing co2 and getting the traffic moving
October 17, 2023
CONTROL the MASSES. Mr. Redwood you MUST be aware that YOUR government is fully implementing Globalist NWO agenda. The people are irrelevant
October 17, 2023
And another thing. The most fuel efficient way to drive a typical car is at a steady 56 mph. The slower the average speed and the greater the number of stop/starts, the greater the fuel consumption. So unless these anti-car measures lead to a drastic reduction in car mileage, their effect will be to worsen climate change.
October 17, 2023
Who makes the decisions on local roads, the council managers and officers or the councillors?
I don’t understand why my council doesn’t make a couple of easy fixes that would make all residents happier. For example, a dual carriageway that allows parking outside established houses reduces a busy double carriageway lane to one lane and, at peak times, causes lots of delays and near misses; some drivers like to cut in late in the inside lane at the bottom inside of the queue. An over-wide central reservation could be removed with just the steel barrier left, giving parking spaces and two lanes to ease the flow.
There is a turn left lane in a neighbouring town onto a busy ‘A’ road dual carriageway; the left turn lane light is on green for a long time, but the lights delay the straight-across lane, and drivers can’t access the inside lane if the straight across lane is full because it isn’t a long enough run, some cars bounce up the curb and drive across the soil, it would take a minimum amount of time to move the curb back two foot, there is plenty of room, but now you just get peeped at if you’re not willing to bounce up the high curb and drive across the soil bouncing back down the curb. They are just silly basic planning errors.
There is no thought about getting the grass cut along the lengths of the road that are coned off; when the road is fixed a couple of weeks later, it’s coned off again for the grass cutters.
New estates lay new drives and tarmac roads, yet no one checks that they do the potholes and make good the road their trucks often churn up near the estates. To get that done when the tarmac teams arrive seems sensible to me. I laughed when the builder nearby laid 3″ of soil over a previous concrete road; I don’t know how they got away with it. It would have been better to leave it a concrete entrance to the cul-de-sac, or they should have been made to dig it out if it was supposed to be left for shrubs and grass; nothing will grow there properly; its surface looks good for a month or so.
October 17, 2023
Councillors appear to have no concept of ‘other people’s money’. Simply because they have the money they feel it has to be spent. Too many council departments are there only to spend. When the Government give them cash to ‘improve; transport they make no attempt to ask taxpayers whether it should be spent in the first place. A local consultation was held about a cycle plan costing three million pounds. Just 2% of the electoral roll responded. Some of course aginst the scheme. It is possible that only 50 people voted in favour of the scheme. What an utter waste of money.