I have watched with concernĀ as Council highways departments have spent much money and time making our roads worse. Motorists and business drivers have to pay huge sums in taxation. There is the taxation on a new vehicle, road fund duty to take a vehicle on the roads, there is the 55% of the fuel price that goes in taxes to the state as fuel duty and VAT, andĀ the taxes on insuring and maintaining the vehicle. The original idea that motoring taxes pay for the roads has long since been supplanted by spending much of the traveller and transporterĀ taxes on anything but roads.
Local authorities do not seem to see the roads as a necessary service to taxpayers where they shouldĀ constantly consider the ease of safe use of the highways by the taxpayers. Most people need to use roads for good purposes. Van drivers need to get to their next client. Delivery drivers need to get food to the shops and medicines to the surgeries and hospitals. Parents need to drive young children to school in safety. Emergency vehicles need to get to accidents and disasters. Many workers need a car or van to get to their place of employment because of their hours and or the location of their work and home. Few people live in walking distance of a station with an employer in walking range of another station down the line. Few people can do the weekly shop from a bicycle or bus. Buses and cycles too need roadspace.
Years ago when I was a member of a County Council I found then there was a wish to restrict use of the roads by some officers rather than a wish to provide additional capacity and safer freer flowing junctions. Traffic lights were often preferred to roundabouts. More recently Council after Council has set about narrowing roads, removing lanes, creating artificial barriers and bollards to restrict flow, cuttingĀ traffic light green phases on busy roads, changing kerbs and painted lines, creating more special zones. They often take out parking spaces and raise the charges, leading to more vehicles circulating looking in vain for a parking place. Many streetscapes now are a slalom course festooned with many menacing signs. Large sums are spent on aggressive kerbs,with b fancy blockwork for carriageways.
All this undermines business productivity, limiting the number of calls someone can fit in. It adds greatly to business costs and therefore to prices of services as the self employed and businesses need to recoup the increased cost of transport and parking.Ā It adds to the stress on drivers and can make roads and junctions less safe, as with the country roads where now one way is occasionally blanked outĀ by bollards forcing vehicles to use the wrong wide of the road to progress. It gives many Councils a bad name and leads the public to be more hostile to all the taxes they have to pay. A council only provides two services to every household, the roads and the refuse collection. If both are damaged and made worse people form a bad impression of the Council as a whole.
Today we see too many roads full of unrepaired potholes, and too many streets narrowed or under road works designed by the Council, against the driver. Too much money is spent on making roads less available and too little on better roads away from pedestrians and homes to allow people and businesses to get about in a sensible way. Coming into work yesterday my optimistic sat nav once again underestimated the time it would take by 17 minutes, not allowing for the all the delays created by Councils through roadworks that many of the public do not want performed.
March 19, 2024
Good morning.
There is a road in London called the A24. Between, Colliers Wood to Balham (please see Google Maps) there is a cycle lane on two sides. These two cycle lanes are demarcated by poles. In between Colliers Wood and Balham stands St. Georges Hospital, a very busy London hospital which see many ambulances coming and going. Both as a cyclist and a motorist I find these poles an absolute menace. They restrict my ability as a cyclist to move into the road when I wish to turn right, and move out of the way for ambulances and other emergency service vehicles. These bloody poles need removing as they represent a danger to life. Not just for cyclists but also for those whose lives depend on those emergency services.
I also note that councils can find the money to put up 20mph speed restriction signs but none for the various potholes and markings. Again, both as a cyclist and a motorist I find this to be a danger.
Perhaps it is time that the government brought in legislation with the aim of making councillors liable to damage to vehicles and people due to their poorly thought out policies ?
March 19, 2024
+1
March 19, 2024
MB,
That stretch of A24 has always been bad. In late1970s/1980s when I comuted by car I would turn off after Clapham common and go via Wandsworth,Earlsfield, Wimbledon to avoid it. Tooting in particular was very bad.
During lockdown I walked the area for the first time. The cycle lanes and restricted access to anf from side streets have only made things worse. Once you get past South Wimbledon tube station it opens up again and the A3 is within reach.
March 19, 2024
JR, Sunak told councils to increase council tax to maximum. Mine has increased by 7%. I will receive no increase in service, quite the opposite thanks to your high tax party/Govt. How about Secretary of State for communities actually doing something to make councils more efficient, CEOs and directors of services paid less, st least paid less than PM as promised? Adult social care costs a fortune because of incompetent inefficient management that your party and govt promised to address. Mayors and police commissioners cost extra with No tangible benefit and were rejected by the public but imposed by your govt at behest of EU regionalisation of our country. We voted leave EU but Sunak acts in lock step, introduces more EU law instead of scrapping 4,000 left on statute book together with rules and regs through quangos, whose sole purpose is to implement EU rules and regs like the Environment Agency who are completely useless, hence why councils took back flood defence st extra cost to taxpayer instead if top slicing EA.
Therefore pot holes, your partyās fault lock stock and barrel. Community Secretary should be sacked.
March 19, 2024
It’s peculiar that we haven’t seen any statistics proclaiming the thousands of lives saved by all these 20mph zones and so-called safety measures, and of course the NHS being so short of RTAs that medical staff are having to be laid off.
March 19, 2024
any alleged life savings probably balanced out by jaywalking/dashing in front of ‘slower’ cars and becoming casualties.
March 20, 2024
The stats that I saw showed accidents increasing in 20mph zones !
But yes we need to see recent, independent figures. If there is no reduction in RTAs in 20mph zones they should be scrapped.
But we all know the real reason for 20mph zones is nothing to do with safety. The real reason is to make car driving as slow and unpleasant as possible. So we won’t see these stats.
March 19, 2024
Ashfield Council have just spent half a million quid installing a cycle lane about 100 yardlong which has proved so dangerous it has been coned off. I’ve never seen a single cyclist using it but the adjacent road is full of potholes.
There appears to be plenty of money for speed bumps and refuges but nothing to repair the roads. We have one of the highest Council taxes in Britain.
March 19, 2024
Original legislation should have been designed to perform its functions simply right first time. Adding laws intending to remedy so many previous mistakes creates continuous jams of corrections and penalties queuing behind.
March 19, 2024
I’ve sat in traffic coming in from the south going to visit someone at St George’s hospital. An ambulance came towards us. Both lanes, one going north and one south had traffic jams. Cars had to drive between these wobbly posts on each lane to give sufficient room for the ambulance! And the next bit of road had a bus stop sticking out into the road! Crazy, crazy, crazy!
March 19, 2024
The London Mayor is still clueless. Shouldn’t Rt Hon Victoria Atkins MP appointed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care be reading the riot act to Khan with 20 mph within 2 miles of a hospital?
March 19, 2024
@Mark B – it is time for fines to be paid into a central pot, then as with the original premise with speed cameras a definition is needed for the reason to fine, an accident, and a small fee was made available to pay for the facility – it was never a local tax.
The onus has to be put back onto whoever is in charge of the highways to program out the problems, that councils say that exist by real road improvements
March 19, 2024
What’s worse is that the old Co-op has become a Lidl! The Germans have finally occupied Tooting.
March 19, 2024
I agree about the 20 mph signage; they must have cost a fortune to install many on cul-de-sacs where you couldn’t get over 20mph if you tried!
March 19, 2024
You haven’t come across the real boy racers yet then?
March 19, 2024
Yes, on the motorway, zipping in and out in braking distance gaps. Yes, on country lanes. Not in the cul-de-sacs no.
March 19, 2024
It seems the voter disagrees with you John who continue to deliver people into power with the sole intent on restricting rather than resurrecting. The voter is unknowingly tipping freedom into the dustbin of history. We seen this destructive phenomena at both local and national level.
Who invited Obama and why? Is this little woke Sunak declaring his contempt for Trump? How much damage has this politician inflicted upon America? It cannot be measured but will in time be condemned by historians
March 19, 2024
“Hello Mr President Obama, so nice of you to visit….Err, can you help me get my Green Card re-issued?”
March 19, 2024
+1 has he come to talk about āthe back of the queueā as he did for Cameron over Brexit?
March 19, 2024
…back of the line!
March 19, 2024
The keys to our freedom are truly in educating the electorate to use their votes wisely. Turning up and spoiling the paper is a choice and if done is sufficient numbers will send a message, a better one than returning a different cheek of the same bottom.
March 19, 2024
Yes that one puzzled me, but I concluded that it was probably a redundancy counselling session.
March 19, 2024
The creation of diversions and ignorance has been so successful.
People just arenāt politically aware.
Many ( here anyway) are still fighting the class war. Viciously.
They are also very tribal and scared of going against the loudest voice in the group.
They believe that they need to āgive the tories a good kickingā completely unaware of the nightmare Labour will deliver.
Bizarrely Mr Anderson just loudly endorsed the jab. Just as Tice did. Soā¦ā¦
March 19, 2024
More pertinent at the moment, Dom, how much damage did he and Cameron infllict on the Near East? They left a trail of destabilisation and devastation across the region with their immature ideas put into practice and are doing the same now. Iran is being enriched again and able to sponsor yet more terror around the region and elsewhere. Petrol is being poured on the fire by drawing out the war, by encouraging Iran annd her proxies to keep going and not give up the hostages, by rreplenishing and reviving them with more and more supplies which don’t reach the intended recipients, by promising a new terror state up above Israel’s cities and airport, and of course by trying to foist regime change on Israel, continually casting the victim as the villain.
March 19, 2024
It would have been better for everyone if the Israelis had been allowed to win as quickly as possible, on all five defensive fronts, and if all assistance possible and moral support had been given to them. When he heard Sunak say “We want you to win!”, did Obama ask for the Cameron appointment, in the same way that Condoleezza Rice had Jack Straw removed?
March 19, 2024
There is an inconsistency in the Biden/Cameron policy: they exhort us to do more when it comes to losing lives and limbs in the two year old war in the Ukraine, but when it comes to the four months in Israel, the war is too long, too many lives have been lost, and the Israelis must surrender to Iran. This is odd as the two countries, Russia nad Iran, are acting in concert against us, sharing weapons, sharing technology, sharing intelligence, and sharing the production of super effective disinformation which is the most powerful weapon of all. China is backing them both.
March 20, 2024
Who is “us”?
March 19, 2024
Rose,
Nonsense. You either believe all the hasbara or you promote it.
Israel has been nothing but trouble since 1948, but the Israel Lobby has captured US politics and therefore UK politics.
March 20, 2024
Correct.See “The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy” by Professor John Mearsheimer,2008.
March 23, 2024
He is clear-eyed on the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and on the Chinese threat, but when it comes to the Iranian war on Israel, he has a blind spot and his sources for his points are flimsy. I’m not going to speculate on why. He is right about the two state solution though.
March 19, 2024
It crossed my mind that themRoI recently visited the White House to plead that UK changes it stance on some issues to make united Ireland easier. Bidenās advisor is also a friend and former advisor to Obama. Within two weeks a drop in call to NO.10? Obama the same man where even Cameron had to make an official formal complaint to stop Obama wrecking BP. Obama is no friend of the UK. His request ought to have been turned down or given to one the woke pro EU junior ministers. I would have invited Sammi Wilson MP to any meeting.
March 19, 2024
We should have a government to satisfy our needs and not the people/community to satisfy governmentās needs
March 19, 2024
thats a novel idea glen – bet it won’t catch on!
March 19, 2024
Don’t know what I was thinking
March 19, 2024
Discussing the (unwinnable) Ukraine/Russia war I would imagine. No point discussing anything with Senile Joe; he’d have difficulty remembering what day of the week it is.
March 19, 2024
My wife and I discussed his appearance. He doesn’t like our Country and showed this on many occasions. Why a personal visit as opposed to a phone or on line conversation? Something is amiss. Call me a cynic but it has an anti Trump smell all over it and requisite support for underhand dealings.
March 19, 2024
All this, as pointed out in the article, at a time when the number of road users is increasing rapidly.
In my village (well it’s no such thing now) there are hundreds of new houses being built and if each household only has one car apiece that is enormous pressure on the already clogged and crumbling roads to and fro.
March 19, 2024
What you say, Michelle, applies very widely across Sir John’s constituency, which has received way above-average in-migration since 2011. The Borough council still use numbers from the 2011 census to model traffic estimates, though. I get the impression it doesn’t matter who the elected councillors are, the council ‘planners’ will carry on regardless doing what they want to do anyway. On that point, it was very interesting to read SJR’s observation from when he was on a County Council many years ago that council officials were already trying to make things difficult for motorists. This seems to be a long-standing agenda on their part, and recent policy objectives like Net Zero may be just excuses to cloak their ideological anti-motorist stance.
March 19, 2024
A fair while ago Planners decided if you wanted a garage they might agree but only if it had no door/s…you see they say it will get used to store stuff and not park a car! They haven’t stopped plans for 4 bed houses yet arguing ‘you probably won’t use the 4th bedroom. However, watch this space.
March 20, 2024
Very few garages shelter a car. Most I know (including mine) are full of junk whilst the expensive car (not my cheap 20 year old banger) sits outside.
March 20, 2024
see …it works for garages. Why not have to justify building 5 and 4-bed houses!
March 19, 2024
Yes, round my local market town it’s 5000 new homes going up and no new infrastructure and on top of which the NHS wants to close our busy little local hospital and transfer everything around the county. Even the stroke unit, where we are told on telly and radio that every minute counts, is being transferred to another hospital 35 miles away. Of course it is still has Diversity Managers and all that rot, but cannot cope with actual patients.
March 19, 2024
2002 – 25,781,931
2022 – 32,169,932
https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/cheap-car-insurance/number-cars-great-britain#nogo
Not quite a massive rise (300,000 per year) compared by the increase in population (700,000 per year)
March 19, 2024
@Michelle – they want and need the taxes the growth provides, but refuse to manage and serve those providing it
March 19, 2024
There is more tarmac in speed humps than potholes.
March 19, 2024
+1
March 19, 2024
John, your party is in power. You are so far removed from what your party does and says. The only real question is why you are still in that party.
Politics is failing this country, why?
March 19, 2024
Speed humps also increase new potholes with the crunch as your and truck wheels hit the road hard again after the hump. They also increase fuel use, brake and tyre wear and pollution as you slow down and accelerate again. Potholes do too. They also distract you from other more important aspects of driving like looking for other hazards, cars and children.
March 19, 2024
You’re not wrong
March 19, 2024
and they are made much more carefully surviving constant bumping, it always interests me to know if the residents hear the regular thump of car wheels, suspension movements and gear changes?
March 19, 2024
It’s time the councillors who impose speed bumps were taken for a ride in an area full of these awful things, ideally when they had a bad back – then they might realise how painful they are to many elderly.
March 19, 2024
Indeed but why are the government and councils so moronic and absurdly anti-car. The car is vital for UK productivity and for making efficient journeys for very many people and families. Walking, public transport, cycling is v. often totally impractical for many journeys and especially for travel outside peak hours and when carrying tools, materials, luggage etc. Also very expensive and inefficient.
In a few weeks I have to go from Birmingham airport to near Cambridge. The train plus taxi will cost about Ā£80 each way per person and goes via London and takes about 4 hours each way. A car for the 90 miles direct takes well under two hour and costs about Ā£20 each way for up to 5 or even 7 people. Plus you have a car when you get there, and it can hold/store your luggage – so you are not having to lugg it round everywhere and you can see things on route.
March 19, 2024
Britain faces 1979 moment, says Rachel Reeves
Labour shadow Chancellor vows economic take-off similar to the Thatcher years with growth-led policies.
So what growth-led policies do Labour have Rachel? Not a single one – Net Zero, mad energy polices, open door mainly low skilled immigration, ever higher taxes, ever more red tape, VAT on school fees, abolition of Non Domsā¦ Rachael (like Socialist Sunak) would not recognise a pro growth policy even if it hit her on the head.
So when is Sunak going to be replaced, absolutely nothing to lose. Or do they want to bury the partly fully in November.
March 19, 2024
I was just old enough to vote in the 1979 Thatcher Election (I was in Cambridge then). Since 1982 Cambridge has been Labour or LibDem it seems.
āIf a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.ā Churchill?
I clearly had no heart even at 12. But then I prefer to think with my brain rather than my heart or gut feeling. Sunak/Hunt green crap Socialism or Reeves green crap Socialism seems to be the choice.
March 19, 2024
Sunak will not be replaced as nobody wants to deprive him of his earned election result. Imagine how bad it would be if Sunakās policies and their popularity at the ballot box was blamed on a capitalist.
We need to sack him and no mistake. Unless you have a real Conservative candidate, vot for whomsoever can beat them – if you love your country enough to do that.
March 19, 2024
Sunak will be unceremoniously dumped post GE. The thin lines of Tory MPs across the Commons with at least 100 then gone will have no qualms in unloading the root cause.
March 20, 2024
Lucky if 100 are left at this rate.
March 20, 2024
Sunak won’t care. He’ll high tail it to the States and you won’t see his a….. for dust.
March 19, 2024
No change no chance of avoiding total annihilation it seems to me. A Sunak cannot no believably change his spots.
His spots of being a tax to death, net zero pushing, inflation causing, currency debasing, red tape pushing, 4 promise failing, mass low skilled immigration encouraging, living standards & economy destroying policies.
Also someone who blatantly lies about Covid vaccine safety and having cut taxes when he has not at all. He has a plan he says alas the plan is to drive over the cliff.
March 19, 2024
Talking about blatant lying to the House when is Penny Maudaunt going to correct her absurd statement to the house that “a transwoman is a woman?”. Will she be suspended for this as Boris was for allegedly lying.
March 19, 2024
LL, you’ve given a good example of what a government genuinely interested in ‘active travel’ should do. There should be massive expansion in a modern public transport network linking provincial hubs such as Birmingham and Cambridge. Instead, a lot of money was spent on upgrading the A414 – justifiably, of course, if nothing was going to be done about restoring this country’s rail network after the aberration of the 1960s. Now a lot more money is being spent on Westminster’s ‘active travel’ agenda, but that doesn’t address the longer-distance travel issue you mention. On top of that, the government is also pushing for EVs, which have problems with longer journeys. Altogether, it’s symptomatic of the lack of joined-up forward thinking by central government and the civil service that we’ve had for decades now.
March 19, 2024
Municipal government, regional government and centrsl government are letting us down everywhere not just on roads. Diven as they are by socialism, personal interests, corruption and thecnet zero religion.
March 19, 2024
@LL
The WEF declared a few months ago that private car ownership must fall by 70%. Unfortunately, many organisations and councils seem to unquestioningly follow instructions from higher up. They seem to believe the propaganda given as the reason for implementing these measures!
March 19, 2024
meaning the State should buy them and only rent out for approved travel. That way wholesale destruction could follow without uproar. softly, softly, catchee monkey.
March 19, 2024
The trip single by car 90 miles door to door by train and taxi (two way taxi trip one direction empty) more like 210 miles. Thirty miles by taxi (which is a car and need a prof. driver with all his energy inputs too). Yet government claim trains and public transport is more efficient! If so why does it cost circa 20 times more and take over twice as long?
March 19, 2024
Obama here delivering orders to the PM! Seems it is true we are not a free country anymore. No wonder there is a recruitment problem with our forces, who in their right mind would put their lives in the hands of the WEF trash!
March 19, 2024
Councils are implementing the DfT’s Active Travel policy. “DfT and ATE (Active Travel England – yet another Quango) share the common objective of delivering increases in active travel to 50% of all journeys in urban areas.”
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/active-travel-england-framework-document-for-working-with-department-for-transport/framework-document-active-travel-england#objectives
Active travel = cycling and walking. All Council are doing with their anti-car policies is coercing a change in behaviour by making motorised transport more expensive, less convenient, and less feasible – a change the DfT supports and encourages with funding for their anti-car policies.
March 19, 2024
In the year 2000 there were 27.2 million licenced cars on Britain’s roads (source statista.com). In 2023, this had risen to 34.7 million – an extra 10.2 million. No wonder our transport networks are so congested
Inevitably, the extra vehicle journeys that this increase represents have caused more traffic jams, more road damage and the constant conflicts in residential areas as drivers seek to use their roads as rat-runs, or worse – places to park their cars. Not to mention the choking extra exhaust pollution from ICE engines.
Little wonder that residents in many Conservative run council areas are demanding Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, sleeping policemen to slow down the traffic through their estates and EV charging points
March 19, 2024
merely a reflection on hopeless, out-of-date, unionised transport. When faced with the situation we buy cars.
Did you not consider that?
March 20, 2024
27.2m to 34.7m is an extra 10.2 million, you say.
Well at least we know you aren’t after all an AI device, Sakara!
But seriously, where are those Conservative-run council areas? I’ve heard Cambridge residents want a reduction in traffic but that council is Labour-run. I haven’t heard of any others, and many cases are reported, in London and elsewhere, of locals opposing LTNs.
March 20, 2024
SG, spare a thought for the Treasury techies, who are trying to formulate a combined taxing regime for EV and ICE passenger cars. EVs can now do four miles per kWh, from there onboard tank/batteries. A petrol car can do 8 miles per litre from its onboard tank/batteries. That is the equivalent of circa 0.9 miles per kWh. I see a tax regime based on vehicle miles
March 21, 2024
Lots of us have campaigned for tax added to fuel so that user driving miles pays, ‘road tax’ would be dropped.
March 19, 2024
Correct John, another MOT recently, and another report that the inside tyre walls (which I can only partly inspect with difficulty) have been damaged, so more extra expense. The customer collecting her car after me was informed she had a broken front suspension spring, which she said was only replaced the previous year for the same reason. Never in my life have I seen roads in such a poor state as they are now.
All this extra expense (and extra tax paid on these repairs) on replacing items before their usual natural life expiry date is hardly GREEN is it.
Councils seem to want to spend a fortune on more cycle lanes for the minority, in theory to keep cyclists safe, but do little to repair roads which are a danger to all road users including cyclists.
It would seem when repairs are done, the standard by and large is poor, and often they need to be repaired again a few months later.
March 19, 2024
Itās fair to charge tax on motoring, or anything that consumes high resources or causes unwanted outcomes. However, there are standards to maintain in keeping services efficient.
People alone cannot be responsible for controlling the roads because roads are beyond personal ownership limits and shared. Even multi-billionaires have to share the facility and are similarly stuck in traffic jams behind Joe Bloggs in front.
Governments should make and keep all roads fit for purpose. This one isnāt and doesnāt. It should hit the road to Polookaville.
March 19, 2024
Potholes at the moment are worse by far than at any time since I started to drive some decades ago.
I suppose the Limted powers these local authorities have comes without responsibility. Very few people vote in local elections, and when they do itās on national issues typically, and anyway the central govt is blamed for more or less everything.
March 19, 2024
and yet the tax hike is the highest ever ….what are they spending the money on ?
March 19, 2024
Bigger, heavier lorries, more 4×4, more SUVs, more heavier EVs. Possibly something to do with it?
March 19, 2024
National government collects all the taxes you mention, way in excess of what they spend on the roads.
Local government predates on the motorist with fines and parking fees.
There seems to be ill defined dilineation of responsibilities and costs between national and local government.
In terms of local government it allows every malign idiot to reign free of control resulting in a prolliferation of ULEZ and the other virtue signalling, ill thought out schemes that emmanate from town halls, while at the same time ignoring the potholes that are a nationwide acne on road surfaces. They cannot even coordinate work on services running beneath our roads such that one could believe that road cones were a breeding species.
The minister and his transport staff need to sit down and first define the responsibilities of both national and local government. They also need to apportion the financial cost nationally and locally from the vast pot of money collected nationally from road users, such that local government is only responsible for the provision of adequate parking. The money is there, the organising and financing is so badly run, such that we have to endure the utter chaos that results. Results that the predating anarchists of JSO and any other legalised vermin are only too happy to add to.
SJR, you only have yourselves, not personally but government , to blame. You have been in charge since the vehicle was invented. So get on and sort it, and while you are at it, recall that every road user has a vote.
March 20, 2024
Censorship, nothing less.
March 19, 2024
Indeed, I see that the comment on the proposed plans for Phase 3-4 on the A329 in Wokingham for narrowing the road to accommodate two 2 metre wide cycle lines is now closed (yes I did comment at length before the deadline)
These proposed cycle paths will be above the road level, meaning new curbs, and existing road drains will need to be re routed, traffic cannot pull over to allow emergency vehicles to pass with ease, and side road turnings off and onto the A329 will be rather more restricted than at present. The present speed limit of 40 mph in some areas is to be reduced to 30mph, and outside of Shute End will be 20 mph.(probably a camera installation, “not shown”, to follow later for more revenue)
More traffic lights on the approach to the Woosehill roundabout, and the Woosehill spine road will have a pinch point restriction of one lane, from the present two lanes at a proposed new pedestrian crossing. This is the only access point to the huge Woosehill housing estate, is free flowing, and had worked perfectly for the last 40 years.
What a colossal waste of money for a handful of cyclists, how many pot holes could be fixed as an alternative, how many thousands of people are now going to be inconvenienced for a few cyclists, and yes it is a few, as I live on the road, and am aware of how few cyclists use the present cycle paths (installed at great expense only a few years ago) on both sides of the road.
March 19, 2024
welcome to LibDems ruling the Council.
March 19, 2024
Parents should not need to drive their young children to school.
Walking is good for all.
One parent of a family with a young child in it should not be having to go to work at 9.00 (or earlier) they should be available to their children.
March 19, 2024
But in the real world with say four kids at three different schools?
March 20, 2024
Why is that the real world – schools favour entry of siblings and if one was at secondary school they should be taking themselves.
Stop excusing poor behaviour that suits you
March 21, 2024
You obviously don’t live in a London borough, or perhaps are childless.
March 19, 2024
Yesā¦all that ghastly āstreet furnitureā is so ugly. An absolute blight achieving nothing but confusion.
Here they have cut down drastically on parking spaces in the āHighā Street ( a woeful remnant of former thriving and bustle) depriving the few remaining shops of custom by pretending the spaces are āresidentsā parkingā.
Fancy being locked out of oneās own town!
March 19, 2024
In September Sunak announced he was going to do something about the proliferation of 20mph zones with their assorted paraphernalia and yesterday (March), having done nothing at all to fulfil that promise, he said exactly the same thing. As on so many matters he seems to think announcing something is good enough to get him a few votes without the need to take any action on it at all. See also “the boats”.
March 19, 2024
Welcome to contemporary Britain where governnment of all forms works against the people.
March 19, 2024
Iāve just found out why councils are so keen on road furniture!
There are firms that recycle windmills into signage and suchlike.
Picnic tables and āhang-out spotsā urgggh too.
So expect more.
Lots moreā¦..
March 19, 2024
John,
Have you seen
https://www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/latest-news/2024/03/devolution-deal-signing/
Are you aware there was a referendum on North East England devolution, and the proposition lost at the ballot box massively?
And here we are the political class imposing it regardless.
Absolutely staggeringly terrible stuff from the most terrible ruling class on the planet.
Yet another referendum that turns out was a complete and utter waste of time.
They dont like democracy unless it gives the result they want. And if it doesnt they ignore it anyways.
March 19, 2024
We rejected a Mayor in Bath and North East Somerset in a Referendum but were ignored and now have the former failed Labour MP Dan Norris. He is an enthusiastic anti car climate change believer. Says it all and why we need radical Reform.
March 19, 2024
Allegedly central government has not funded road maintenance enough for local government to do the job properly. Central government (i.e. the Tories) gave Cambridgeshire half a billion pounds (and counting) for transport projects but it seems that none of this could be spent on road maintenance, so they have spent all the money bulldozing their way around Cambridge and the surrounding (greenbelt) area to add bus lanes (and a few cycling upgrades). Transport people the world over hate drivers, and the Cambridgeshire transport people are no exception to this, so are happy to blow most of the money on bus lanes. Central government sets the rules so must take much of the blame.
(The Cambridgeshire transport people have also proposed to close nearly all roads in Cambridge to through traffic. Central government apparently wants “the people” to approve LTNs, but of course people in the LTNs generally approve of them, it’s people who are not in the LTNs who suffer. And since the Cambridge transport people are proposing in effect LTNs for 90% of the city, obviously this will have overwhelming support. For the 90% the proposal will be “how would you like nobody but you and your neighbours from being able to drive on your road?” and obviously those people will say what a jolly good idea this is.)
March 19, 2024
I see from the Wokingham News letter this morning, the Government have given Wokingham another Ā£264,000 for the installation of some EV charging points, (no idea as to locations yet) on top of the Ā£173,000 already given.
More money for Ev’s that do not pay any Road Tax, but which help destroy the roads, as they are heavier than equivalent ICE vehicles.
Guarantee this will not feature in any LibDem leaflets, they will simply imply it was all down to them and their Green Polices.
March 19, 2024
“A council only provides two services to every household, the roads and the refuse collection.”
This threw me at first. They provide lots of services, but I guess your point is that these are the only two services that all households without exception “consume”. It’s something the Councils themselves regularly forget, as they empire-build.
March 19, 2024
Money is wasted with the employment of cowboy contractors. Endless examples where they fill in holes without proper preparation and in a year or so the fill comes out.
Clearly no-one in the councils care. If they are judged on performance it will be on numbers not quality. Chances are many are in close friendship with tbe contractors.
The negligence of our roads is however at all levels. I live in the country and most roads seem to have been abandoned. They They ought to have been widened and also need rebuilding now as they are often collapsing.
One other problem, of many, is the grass verges are being flattened by the wheels of modern trucks and large farm vehicles, so at road edges there are often what could be described as trenches and great risks of damage to cars. When filled with water this risk is greater. Neglect is such that even where there are kerbs these have sometimes become ovegrown and there are stretches where they can’t be seen.
The problems are so great and widspread tackling them are beyond present leaders who lack the imagination or courage.
Another Tory leadership legacy of ignorance and lack of connection with real people.
March 19, 2024
How much of this is driven by the drive to achieve Net Zero? Many councils are members of a group called UK100 which describes itself as : “UK100 is a network of local leaders who have pledged to lead a rapid transition to Net Zero with Clean Air in their communities ahead of the governmentās legal target.
UK100ās primary purpose is to support a local-led rapid transition to Net Zero and Clean Air. We do this through collaboration. To accelerate action, we believe in bringing together the most influential leaders across the country to learn together and agree on priorities for legislative and regulatory change while empowering them to engage with national decision-makers. We provide our network with the knowledge, tools and connections to make this
happen.”
Most people are probably unaware of this and the public don’t seem to have been consulted. Councils seem to have become fiefdoms for devout supporters of the Net Zero scam.
March 19, 2024
If the govt. and its local authority puppets had cared a jot about anyone or anything they would have stopped the proliferation of vehicles years ago.
Facilitation of second third and fourth cars via debt and front garden paving.
And why do they allow cars to rampage around our oh so green streets blaring out truly deafening music? And idling? And the mad max vehicles that now splutter, pop and boom around during the night? And parking on the verges? And come to thatā¦fly tipping?
They arenāt creating a green and pleasant land ā¦just a nightmare of noise and filth.
March 19, 2024
What puzzles me is that all the ridiculous measures affect us, Jo Public, it affects SJR, the MP for the area…. does it not also affect the councillors thinking up the hare brained schemes?
If it does adversely affect them, why do they continue to do it?
If it doesn’t affect the councillors, how come?
March 19, 2024
As usual, when this subject comes up, the government comes out with a statement that ‘we are allocating 8 billion for the roads over the next 11 years’. Sounds a lot, but mostly due to neglect and the stupid Osborne/Cameron austerity measures which ruined all public services but saved nothing. However much this 8 billion sounds, it is not much more than half the amount required just for potholes, let alone anything else. Cheap again. Have they never heard the maxim ‘buy cheap, buy twice’. That’s what’s happening now, we have to make good all the ruin the austerity programme caused and it will not be cheap and will take donkey’s years just to reverse. How I hate politicians who come in with their big theories, wanting to experiment on us and our money and end up retiring on nice big jobs and pensions and leave us with their mess. Government power somehow needs to be curtailed – big majorities always end in big disasters. There is the counter argument against those who say proportional voting just ends with slower government. That’s what is needed to stop them ruing our country.
March 19, 2024
A Fish rots from the head down. Local Councils are following the example of the Central Government, which is also making life more difficult for ordinary people.
But much of the nonsense is driven by the Net Zero fixation. Someone needs to do some proper research and show what utter rubbish the Global Warming/ Climate Change theory really is.
A proper Conservative Government would stop all this nonsense, and that is what we voted for in 2019. How sad that we did not get one.
March 19, 2024
Your piece this morning, Sir John, is describing the work of fifth column Marxists who have infiltrated the council highway departments to make our roads worse in order to waste money, increase poverty and cause general aggravation and chaos wherever they can.
Voters need to make themselves aware of the plans Mayor Khan has for London as Chair of the C40 Cities organisation and the planned way of life by 2050 as laid out by the government funded UK FIRES report.
The Conservative administration have not curbed any of these plans and in fact voters should make the effort to read āMission Zeroā by the Conservative Rt Hon member for Kingswood who has laid out the Net Zero plans quite clearly.
Making the roads worse is part of the Net Zero plan.
March 19, 2024
Sir John is once again on the ball and explaining so many repercussions of poor quality roads. The list is long. How do we get on local councils the type of people we obviously need? And what type is this? People with even a smidgen of common sense. Just common sense. If – somehow – one could invite the less ‘pushy’ yet practical types to consider local council work, it would be a godsend. For many, such townhall stuff is just too remote from their minds. There has to be a simple way of changing their attitude. Perhaps organise regular ‘open days’ of some sort to stimulate their interest. Any ideas, dear Reader?..Me, I’m mainly out of the picture..working abroad. Otherwise?…
March 19, 2024
KM-J : “Me, Iām mainly out of the picture..working abroad. Otherwise?ā¦”
Lots of councillors live large distances from the area they repreent. Some have even been found to be living permanently abroad. So go for it!
March 19, 2024
I received my council tax demand yesterday. Up 5.4% this time. What happened to āa referendum if the increase is to be above 5%?ā The council budget was about Ā£350 million. Most came from our council tax, Ā£64 million from business rates and LESS THAN A MILLION from central government. So, the idea that āwe have to put up council tax because of cuts from central governmentā is clearly nonsense in West Dorset – we get virtually nothing from Central Government as it is.
March 19, 2024
I believe the Tories scrapped it.
March 19, 2024
While I applaud your support for the motorist, my council would argue that theyāre only following the net-zero funding & instructions of government ā¦.and due to the lack of funding they increasingly turning more roads into chargeable
March 19, 2024
Sir John
There needs to be a complete trashing, thrown in the bin, of the UKās tax system and new definitions as to purpose. Real constraints to enforce purpose, then only those purposes essential
Governments are forever inventing seemingly with well-meaning taxes, even calling them levies etc. No sooner are they invented they are abused and redirected again seemingly for personal self-indulgent reasons. They are not used for purpose; any commercial operation would wind up in jail for deception.
The end result is a tax burden that is a hash-up, a system that is costly in administration and burdensome. Deception, deceit has now turned into lies and dishonesty ā bringing the whole of the UK into disrepute. Everyone gets to follow the Lead from their Government.
The motorist is the guy in the street that needs to get to work to help create the UKās wealth, i.e. most of the Country that is employed is held hostage, by what can now be seen as a corrupt system. This Conservative Government they do nothing ā they are bankrupt of ideas; their time is spent on ālook-at-meā your leader and I am wonderful. A Government that manager has gone missing.
March 19, 2024
Apart from the restrictions on traffic flows, there is the huge cost of all these schemes.
They are certainly not necessary, let alone popular with the people who have to pay for them
Our own council tax has risen to Ā£3,000 for 2024-2025, a rise of 5%. Slash road “improvements,” like even more cycle lanes, and it could have stayed the same as last year.
March 20, 2024
Chris S
Our Council tax now Ā£3,265.
Over Ā£3,500 on Heat, Light, Power and Water, which includes VAT
Over Ā£2,000 on House and Car Insurance/Road tax, car servicing, which has a tax on it.
Over Ā£2,000 on House maintenance on which VAT is charged.
Over Ā£1,000 to fuel the car, which has tax on it as well as VAT.
So that’s my State Pension virtually gone, which is now also taxed.
Guess many have similar figures.
Does not leave a lot left for Food, Rent, Mortgage, Food, Clothes. TV licence, Replacement of equipment in the house, etc, etc etc.
Good job I saved a little whilst working, but in doing so I have excluded myself from any Benefits, which may have been available to others who did not bother, or who could not afford it at the time.
March 20, 2024
and all retirees will be aware and will more than hesitate to vote for more of the same.
You didn’t mention holidays, special events (birthdays, Christmas, Weddings, Schooltrips) – nor Dental services, Hairdressing, Opticians, Hearing….etc
Funerals (our own! and direct relatives are eye-wateringly expensive.
And when the State decides we can’t return home , Care Home fees soon evaporate any value we had in our home.
March 21, 2024
MT
I also forgot telephone and internet costs, given that is how our future is deemed to rely upon those services.
Then of course we have Inheritance tax which many of our relatives will need to pay HMRC in advance of any settlement they may receive, because it is deemed due after 6 months of passing.
This time scale is an absolute bloody nonsense, as few Estates can be settled in that time scale as Probate itself (A Government Department) takes about 6 months.
A recent family members death has taken a Solicitor over 18 Months so far, for a very simple Will and first death (where fortunately IHT is not due, spouse exemption).
March 19, 2024
A lot of this never-ending punishment of those that need to go to work stems from a lame excuse being generated as to why the infrastructure has not been built to cope with the ever-rising population that is being imported into the Country.
The Government and Councils see the motorist as the enemy, when in reality it is they that have failed, they themselves are the enemy. They fight peoples need to work to create wealth and taxes for the nation. They want the new homes as it creates local taxation, but they donāt want those people to leave their homes. They fight the car but there is no alternative option available- they even refuse that. Our Politico are āmoronicā they fight not serve those that pay their wages.
March 19, 2024
Ian B : “Our Politico are āmoronicā they fight not serve those that pay their wages.”
It’s even worse than that, they’re desperately trying to change the electorate into one that’s compliant with authoritarian rule and lower living standards.
March 19, 2024
Potholes a metaphor for an institutional failure to maintain and upgrade so a penny pinching government waits until there is almost total meltdown that needs more money than if corrective work had been done at the time and then grants half the money needed over as long as possible.
A pandemic was war gamed before Covid, the results were ignored and we saw the egregious amounts of panic money wasted.
The private sector, banks for example, have spent billions on upgrading computer legacy systems. Look at the disgrace of the NHS and Police amongst many others.
The bill for potholes is vastly greater than if they had been fixed properly and when needed rather than the ālick and a promiseā they get now. Even when we get a new shiny road there is no coordination with other services so it often gets quickly dug up for new cables etc.
Our broadband fibre network, acknowledged as the key to our commercial and industrial future, is laughably behind the US and SE Asian etc nations through the dead hand of BT Openreach unchallenged by the Regulator plus (still) EC bureaucracy and a fixation in outdated views of competition. Even the head of one of the large European telecoms recently at the annual world jamboree very publicly stated that the dead hand of the State needed to be lifted because at present they are not even covering cost of capitol.
Every politician over at least the last 20 years has been more interested in grandstanding whilst allowing very well paid senior civil servants and public sector managers to preside over crumbling services and infrastructure.
March 19, 2024
One of the boasts of Blair was that he was not going to spend money on the road network – no new projects and no more routes. Things improved slightly since then, but we are left with an inadequate set of congested routes thanks to Blairs misuse of road funds.
In my area there are a lot of lanes, mostly single track, that have not seen any improvements since they were first tarmacked – probably early in the last century.
To avoid the congestion on all roads that occurs when the nearby Dartford crossing becomes overwhelmed, satnavs take drivers along these lanes in hope of a better journey.
All too often chaos results as trucks, SUVs and even ambulances struggle to go around each other – often someone has to reverse a great distance to find a spot where a driveway or ditch provides a safe space to pull into.
If the road agencies had been on the ball they would have made all such lanes dual path long ago, but no, they never thought of that, and anyway unless they get extra government money nothing will ever be done, they tell me.
This is the same council wasting huge sums on cycle / walking ways that nobody will ever use in normal circumstances. They create these white elephants by reducing road width or lanes. The whole green scheme is pc nonsense but is being rolled out across the country.
When will motorists get a fair deal?
March 19, 2024
Councils are out of control. There needs to be a reform of council services. I travel the world and Iāve not been to another western country where the roads are in such a mess. If itās true, as stated on Panorama last night, that 80% of our council tax goes on social care, we need to investigate why. My council tax here for one month is higher than for the whole year for my house in Spain. The Spanish roads are immaculate. Either the money is being mismanaged or we are importing the needy from across the World, something doesnāt add up and with several councils facing bankruptcy things seem to be getting worse. How long can this government keep mugging the middle classes?
March 19, 2024
Iām afraid this is what itās come to after 14 years of āconservativeā government. Most essential services that the population rely on have been salami sliced to death. Last nights programme on local councils having great difficulty in keeping to a balanced budget said it all. The government insisted on perusing its pet projects to the detriment of more social services. Handing out money to Councils like sweets on a ādo this scheme or you donāt get itā basis was/is demeaning. I am a motorist but, although I complain about potholes, do realise what an impossible job Councils have.
March 19, 2024
Road construction and repairs will have to be carried out to much higher standards should there be a substantial move to the much heavier EVs as time goes by. Unless, of course, a much lighter but more powerful battery becomes the standard, at which point all existing EV’s become worthless.
March 19, 2024
“Parents need to drive young children to school in safety”.
It’s not only about safety; your local school within walking distance may not always be suitable for your child.
Parents often need to drop their children off at school on their way to work 15-30 minutes away if they try to do this on public transport outside of London with the one bus per hour! It can’t be done. We have too many London-based people deciding for the rest of the Country based on the ease and frequency of their services and distances away from where they need to go to.
March 20, 2024
In London areas it is quite normal for parents to find they are forced to have children not only in different schools, but in opposite directions from home. I remember politicians insisting ‘parents should have CHOICE’.
March 19, 2024
A lot of the new pot-hole problems in my town are because of the new house building on roads the locals said at planning meetings would need resurfacing first before the extra thousand cars started using them. They ignored everyone and built the homes, the entrances to those estates are unsafe, no street lights on the junction of one large estate, pot holes all up the road to the entrance to what was the old school, surely when planning hundreds of homes the builder and his tarmac agent who seem to tarmac in the driveways but not the streets around the estate could be asked to do the run-ups to those new estates if they go over 250 dwellings?
Pavements are put in where the are needed. Cycle lanes aren’t put in to help kids from that estate get to the town centre or the local High School, never mind any safe cycling route up to the Railway station. The road to the nearest and only hospital we can go to is churned up. The potholes are nearly a half depth of the tyre at the junction near the hospital. Then they decide to narrow the road and make it a halt with one way prominent causing massive traffic jams. It all comes back to bad council planning and enforcement.
March 19, 2024
Its that bad in my area that even the new cycle-lanes (six years old) now have pot-holes, cracks, distortion and the paint is missing ā¦and my council is planning to build more ā¦but its all part of the greater plan to get us off the roads
March 19, 2024
I should love to see officers and councillors held personally responsible for the consequences of decisions they have taken. While they are not, they will continue to indulge in any luxury ideology they fancy.
March 19, 2024
Sensibility is beginning to rear its head…
A Petition to repeal the Climate Change Act and Net Zero targets:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/657353
Please sign
March 19, 2024
Please be aware the ‘nutters’ are hovering – a backlash from Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, who said a Labour government would make ESO(National Grid Electricity System Operator) accelerate its programme to hit the 2030 target. A spokesman said: āWe said 2030 for decarbonising the grid and we meant it.ā
The GE will be about who destroys the UK first Sunak or Starmer. Not about who will move the UK forward
March 19, 2024
Signed
March 19, 2024
If it’s not, the National Government, it’s our Local one, near to all of us. And it’s all about big government and big councils commanding big salaries and big pensions. Somebody has to pay for them, and it’s bound to be those who only matter come election time once in five years. Until the public sector is checked and culled, this country has little chance of growing, because there’s not enough money in the pot to fund excesses, indefinitely. At the current rate, the Government will again have to call on the IMF to bail us out.
And this time there’ll be no Mrs Thatcher to turn the country around.
March 19, 2024
From the MsM
“Heavier electric cars are blamed for the Ā£16 billion cost of Britain’s pothole plague as crumbling roads reach ‘breaking point'”
March 19, 2024
The Hertz USA, CEO has been made to resign due to his disastrous decision to make his fleet of hire vehicles electric ā¦.In business there is never a right or wrong time for the chief to resign or be sacked, if theyāre incompetent, missed the business targets or show poor leadership theyāre gone ā¦gone on the spot that same day …you donāt allow incompetent to fester you move on a get a better leader
March 19, 2024
Most Councils are broke, run by Labour plus Scotland, run by the SNP and Wales, run by Labour and London, run by Labour’s Khan (who used Ulez to cover the deficit).
It is therefore mission impossible to reverse the bad decisions on improving traffic flows inflicted on road users like LTNs, bus lanes, cycle lanes, 20 mph without extra funding, borrowing and council tax rises (+4.9% this year in N. Wiltshire).
In late 2022 RAC announced “JCB launch new machine that can fix a pothole in minutes for just Ā£30”. The Ā£165,000 machine repairs potholes faster than it takes 6 men to do, but there are not many to cope with the present pothole crisis which is exacerbated by heavy EV and SUV trends.
March 19, 2024
I forgot to add that is – despite the extra rises of the Road fund licence (never ring-fenced) and extra funds available for potholes from the Govt to finance this work.
March 20, 2024
The lightest fiesta 1.3 20 years old car pays Ā£250 road tax, while the heaviest 2 tonne EV pays no road tax ….which is most likely to make pot-holes ?
March 19, 2024
Govenment using the carrot & stick of funding to follow there ‘social-engineering’ get rid of cars green policy …first noticed when councils where told they’d get extra funding if they appointed city/regional mayors without referendum …I call that tyranny, actions of communist countries ….vote our way and get a bribe
March 20, 2024
well we could try banning EVs, SUV and Chelsea Tractors on any roads that have potholes….
Perhaps that’s a No!