Our road system is badly run, delivering a poor service to all the people struggling to get to work, to drop children off at school and getting to the shops. It lets down delivery drivers, large trucks bringing Ā essential supplies and business vehicles carrying people to do work in our homes and commercial premises.
It is a typical nationalised monopoly. It believes in keeping us short of roadspace on the bizarre grounds that if they built more roads we would use them more. Any normal business is delighted to expand when it hits on a popular product or service.
The highways authorities take special delight in making life as difficult Ā as possible for their tax paying customers. They regularly restrict access, narrow lanes, increase junction delays and change rules on road use. They Ā compound this by setting traps to get more fines revenue out of complex and changing regulations.
They fail to maintain the surfaces of many roads, letting potholes grow until more extensive and expensive repairs are needed. The state grossly overcharges for use of the roads, collecting far more in motoring taxes than it defrays in road costs.
They insist on putting cables and pipes under the middle of main road requiring digging up the road every time a repair, replacement or increase of facility is needed.
Why? We depend on the roads for so much of our lifestyle.
August 21, 2023
Good morning.
Of course it is, it is the Kings Highway. As I understand it, it is he that owns it and it is both Central and Local government that administrate it – badly I might add.
Yes, like much else. Please see above as to the reason why I think it is.
Privatising our road network to pay off government debt will not make things better. What will make things better would be to have those administrating our affairs do the job we pay them.
As in the case for water, exchanging one monopoly provider for another does not work. Road charging also does not work as currently motorists are carrying a very heavy burden with little or no return. The problem falls down to those who spend the money that is collected. Said money is going elsewhere and not on the roads.
We never use to have these problems. Why after 14 years of Conservative maladministration are we having them now ?
August 21, 2023
ā They regularly restrict access, narrow lanes, increase junction delays and change rules on road use. They compound this by setting traps to get more fines revenue out of complex and changing regulations.ā
Correct. Half of the main road in Hammersmith has disappeared. Half of Waterloo Bridge Road is no longer available to cars. I remember, not long ago, when you could park there for a night out.
The thing is once these roads are gone we are never getting them back. A war on cars means decent public transport will be essential or people will have to remain closer to home..
That said, you cannot have people building new roads all over the place, any more than you can have new housing built anywhere developers fancy.
August 21, 2023
Crickey, I hope they’re not suggesting privatising our roads! We need to be told how much is being paid in road taxes, energy taxes on fuel and electricity, tolls, fines, and what is being spent in each region. Who are we paying, and how much? Why are they allowed to take so long, with stretches of motorway out of use for two years without anything being done? What charges are put on large housing developments to contribute to the local road network, and who gets to spend that council or government?
August 21, 2023
a-tracy
This is just a ‘guess’. It is my ‘guess’ but I am sticking too it.
The plan is to bring in road pricing everywhere in the UK. The UK taxpayer pays for the infrastructure and its maintenance through charges. This creates profit which, to greedy, and usually foreign ‘investors’, want to participate in. Much like they do in our utilities.
The result !?! government get a load of cash to splash and in it to boot, offload their responsibility for another piece of infrastructure. Of course the Ministry for Transport and various Ministers will remain in place whilst a new Regulator complete with jobs for their mates is created.
Read that and look back in history and tell me I ‘might’ be wrong.
August 21, 2023
Our road system is badly run
Replace the word road with political and then you you have the answer, we need a very big change in the way this country is run or not run in the British best interest, so make a start in the roads but show as much interest as the liquid road between us and Europe and stop these bloody boats before itās to late
August 21, 2023
The boats are annoying because they emphasise our complete impotence in defending our country. However the illegals are but a small fraction of the hordes the Government are ushering in legally. I agree (as a cyclist) that the state of many roads is a disgrace but not with building lots more roads to accommodate the multiplying cars of a burgeoning population. We should not tarmac over the entire country, we should reduce immigration.
August 21, 2023
Mick – The liquid road : 337 / 5 boats yesterday 20/8. Last 15 days 06/8 to 20/8 inclusive – a total of 2886 in 53 boats. Of those 15 days were total 6 days with a reported zero ( for no other reason than poor weather …. ) Mail on line article today reports Ā£306 million to be spent on three new detention centres / contracts. We do not have sufficient detainee capacity which will of course increase. From the detail given, UKG talking long term and with other possible presently unused locations under consideration of being brought back on line to accommodate, well, unknown numbers I suppose. I don’t think it is unkind or crass to say that the proliferation continues and will need to continue without radical action and policy change. As a minister stated quite some time back, UKG would in effect spread the load to more areas in order to make it fair on everyone.
August 21, 2023
Don’t you mean “equally unfair on everyone.”
Why should any British taxpayers be forced to fund or put up with the criminal economic migrants who are invading our country living in their area?
August 22, 2023
Donna: Yes, correct but the word used then was ‘fair’. It grated on me at the time & it grates even more on me now.
H O website number has just come up for yesterday 21 Aug: 661 / 15 boats, so fewer than media estimates yesterday. Two weeks or so to go though before all on ‘both sides’ of the Channel are back from holidays when we can expect nothing to change apart from an increasing daily outlay of taxpayer funding & that all important virtue signalling.
August 21, 2023
All those people & boats, in the past 2 weeks, right under the noses of our media and governments ….has everyone got their heads in the sand
August 21, 2023
or up somewhere else?
August 21, 2023
Very true , what can we do about it?
August 21, 2023
It’s never about what they say it’s about. It’s not about air quality or environmental protection. It’s about State theft to promote collectivism and attacks on freedom to move around without State interference. These people are laughing at us and provoking us at the same time.
We’ve have always looked to the Tories to defend individual freedom and protecting liberty and speech. This is no longer the case and I for one find that utterly terrifying.
Politicians like John must expose their own party’s connivance and complicity with the Socialists before it’s too late
The public must know the truth before they vote themselves and the nation into servitude
August 21, 2023
Exactly but alas there are only a handful of sensible MPs like JR. Look how almost every MP voted for the climate change act and Mayās moronic net zero was just nodded through.
āIt believes in keeping us short of roadspace on the bizarre grounds that if they built more roads we would use them moreā this is controlling demand by using congestion an insane policy, congestion increases road use.
If road space really need to be rationed them road pricing is the way to do this can be used to charge more at peak times and even out demand. Also the funds raised should be used to build more road space, parking, underpasses, over passes, railway bridges (to stop the empty trains holding up the cars). Bus lanes (usually empty or with nearly empty buses) restrict road capacity hugely often halving it for many routes.
Good interview just now with the sensible Dr Dewi Evans the main prosecution expert in the nurse trial on ITV. āThe first action of the NHS is to sweep things under the Carpetā indeed similar for the police, the BBC, most of government, Royal Mailā¦ and of course Tory MPs for example over the huge net harm Covid vaccines. Trying to sweep Andrew Bridgen under the carpet for telling the truth (that they do not wish to hear). As many as nearly 3% with detectable vaccine caused heart issues it seems. Most, due to they young age or having had Covid already had no need for the vaccines. This even had they been remotely safe and effective.
August 21, 2023
A must watch Video distributed by msg from an interview from the grave – Enoch Powell on the state of Britain.
It may be in bad taste, have bad language, but strikes to the heart of what is going on unfettered with pretence that it is minor, affordable, humanitarian and a vote winner in the opinion of past immigrants who are Ā£millonaires.
August 21, 2023
(It is too late.)
August 21, 2023
Good Morning,
Yes agree, the road system is poorly maintained. The problem is not who owns it, it is who maintains it.
Answer this question first: is the Conservative government currently in place, dissatisfied with the way our roads are maintained, if you are, what have you done about it? Have ANY senior managers of the road system had to take ‘early retirement’ as a consequence?
Reply Most of the road system is Council run. motorways are better maintained.
August 21, 2023
But is it not the responsibility of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to oversee Local Authorities ?
August 21, 2023
JR, I agree the motorways in the main are better maintained, less potholes and debris, but someone/company was responsible for closing the slip road at M6 J16 Crewe/Stoke for far too long in both directions. Who? Why? How much did it cost to keep the recovery service on call? Why close it off when they weren’t working on it? Why don’t we have a report line for problem roadworks that don’t seem to have any work being done on them for over a month for a minister to investigate cost, who you are paying and what is taking so long?
August 21, 2023
Councils have been given money by DCLG and DoT to impose road obstructions. I suspect that emails might reveal that potholes are considered very effective obstructions. What is clear is that bitumen use is down 25% on the first few years of the century, when maintenance was still just about adequate. Given that roads that carry regular traffic last about 25 years before needing a proper resurfacing, we are now facing a cumulative backlog that covers much of the road system.
August 21, 2023
Politicians and the great and good hate the motorist because they can’t control our movements.
The only way of exercising control is via the roads.
It’s no coincidence that the push for EVs is intended to force us onto public transport thus controlling our movements.
The new EVs will act as surveillance vehicles and ultimately pay by the mile.
The pilot scheme is the extended ULEZ scheme in London which the government is 100% in favour of.
August 21, 2023
Not āgovernment in favour ofā but āgovernment inspired & initiatedā
August 21, 2023
For capitalism to work (eg in superstores) then you have to have competition. Real competition.
If you do not, then you get the water boards mainly foreign owned and, yes, verging on the corrupt. Or the NHS. Or the national grid.
I cannot see how you can privatise the roads so they all compete fairly with each other.
August 21, 2023
Once upon a time you could throw out a Council that did a bad job and replace with one that would do a better one. Competition in management of road repair, bin collection, school provision etc. operated over time with Residents Associations actually replacing traditional parties in control in some cases. That mechanism no longer works very well, because there is little to choose between parties wanting to declare climate emergencies and happy to implement the central government programme of preparing for 15 minute cities etc. over which they have very little discretion anyway.
August 21, 2023
The state’s attitude to people wanting to use the roads is evidenced by the number of pointless temporary road traffic control lights they erect. If I had a pound for every traffic queue I have been forced to endure waiting at a set of temporary traffic lights, only to find nothing and no one working at the site, I would be a rich man. Those who travel in convoy inside executive limousines unhindered in the Zil lanes or bus lanes, as we call them over here don’t suffer or have to pay ULEZ or congestion charges do they…..
August 21, 2023
They also block roads causing diversion, but almost never do they adjust the traffic light phasing of the lights they are all diverted to, thus causing huge queues. Light designed for 3 cars a minute suddenly get 50 or something!
August 21, 2023
You say āIt believes in keeping us short of roadspace on the bizarre grounds that if they built more roads we would use them moreā
This indeed is the mad climate alarmists, anti-car argument and has been for years. But few people want to spend endless hours sitting in their cars. They do however want to get to work, school, the shops, granny or from A to B to C to D efficiently. The less congestion the less time you spend in your car & on the road doing this. There also make the point about land use but we can have double deck roads and under overpasses when land is short.
The loons try to pretend that trains, bikes, walking, busesā¦ are more efficient. In reality they are usually far less efficient, take far longer door to door with end connections, cannot carry or store your luggage, tools, shoppingā¦ cannot drop the kids or granny off on route and do not work for many elderly or disabled people.
People wrongly think train and bus occupancy is far higher than it is due to a statistical sampling error (most passengers catch (so sample) the full ones) ask the driver to properly record it and often occupancy can over the full day depot to depot be far less than 10%. Then allow for the often very indirect routes, the often double taxi or car journeys at each end, the professional staff, stations, track, ticketingā¦ no so clever. Even walking powered by the very inefficient fuel of human food is not so clever. HS trains even worse as fewer stop = longer end journeys.
Also note taxis are far less efficient than cars as they spend half their time travelling with no passengers between jobs and they have a professional driver. About 3 times less efficient in energy and CO2 terms. So why are taxis allowed in bus lanes but far more efficient private cars are not. A full car is probably the most efficient travel possible for most journeys and the cheapest despite the vast over taxation of cars and subsidies for public transport.
August 21, 2023
Roads will be in generally good condition, and highways management a non issue, in 10 yearsā time. There will be far less wear and tear on road surfaces because there will be far fewer petrol and diesel cars. Government will eradicate any advantage in their use and ownership by retaining the ban on the sale of new such vehicles, and by gradually reducing the availability of fuel through punitive taxation on traditional service stations resulting in closures. Reduced petrol and diesel supply will therefore increase prices, and electric cars will be presented as the modern, lower cost form of mechanised private transport.
August 21, 2023
Road damage scales with the fourth power of axle weight. That means that most of the damage is done by trucks, as a 6 axle 42 tonne truck does 6×7^4 = 14,406 units of damage compared with 2×0.75^4 = 0.633 for a large family car, or just 0.125 units for a small one. A VW ID4 EV weighs just over 2 tonnes, and does 2.5 units of damage, or about 4 times as much as a large family car. If trucks are required to go electric the payload that can be carried will be greatly reduced by the weight of battery required, which will of course also apply on ballast legs as well. The consequence will be a sharp increase in road damage (especially if permitted axle weights are increased) unless we plan to reduce the tonne miles of freight to compensate: that would represent a sharp decline in the standard of living.
August 21, 2023
In my town the council sold part of the highway for a development thus taking out a major artery in the centre of the town. Then they pedestrianised the high street. They created a one way system which has no emergency alternative, down the back lane between the back of two blocks of shops – this is now the main thoroughfare. They allow bins to be permanently āparkedā on the loading zones off this lane even though itās illegal. The whole town centre is hell to get to.
But there is a nice new business park with supermarkets and no parking fees or visible dustbins on old, fallow council groundā¦..
They are moving the town to the area they own and making the existing town centre worthless.
August 21, 2023
Building and maintaining roads is not compliant with the politiciansā Net Zero target so it wonāt be done. They disapprove of drivers for the same reason. The only positive thing they see in roads that they will spend money on is converting them to cycle lanes.
August 21, 2023
Firstly they want fewer people on the roads. Not that all of us can take the tube to where we want to go (a few of us live outside of London). But fewer road users will make it more pleasant for the elite, who won’t be affected by increased transport costs for food and just about everything else.
Secondly if roads were run by the private sector, wouldn’t they be as bad as the railway s? My daughter had tickets Chichester-Exeter for a wedding. Ā£40 advance fare. All 3 trains she needed to make the journey are cancelled due to the RMT. So she’s looking at train to London the day before, hotel overnight and then share a hire car with those travelling from London. Or maybe coach on the day – but you have to travel to London first then back out to Exeter. I need to travel to Gatwick on the same day. Instead of an advance Ā£6 rail fare I’m having to spend Ā£95 on a taxi (no coaches run any more on the Chichester’ Gatwick route).
August 21, 2023
Not forgetting the attitude of the police, who will close a road at the drop of a hat on the purported basis that every accident has created a potential crime scene, with little or no concern for those whose likelihood of getting to their Point B in time or at all has disappeared as a result of being trapped.
August 21, 2023
+1 this especially if a police car or other public vehicle was involved in the crash I have noticed.
August 21, 2023
Why?
Because legislation, partly British but mainly EU Regulations, requires them to do it.
The Government could amend British legislation and resile from the EU Regulations, but it chooses not to. The Highways Authorities are simply applying the legislation, regulations and “encouragement” of the DfT/Eco Nutters. ie the proliferation of cycle lanes, which are restricting roadspace across the country are encouraged and generally paid for by the DfT and Sustrans (a cycling charity-quango linked to the DfT).
“The Department for Transport has announced a Ā£35 million continuation of funding to improve the quality, safety and accessibility of the National Cycle Network,”
https://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-blog/news/2022/may/department-for-transport-announces-vital-funding-for-the-national-cycle-network
Sir John should address his question to the Sec of State for Transport.
August 21, 2023
Local roads are bad because they are maintained by the council, who have to divert every last penny towards the bottomless pit of statutory “adult services”. In other words, care home costs for those who have spent all they had and put nothing by for their old age.
Reply On the contrary they spend lots on changing the roads and junctions for the worse, on surveillance and enforcement of over the top rules etc
August 21, 2023
True – like putting flashing camera warnings of exceeding 30 mph on the A321 in Hurst. One side half a dozen set back homes with pavement, on the other side 2 well set back and high gated homes.
Now, I wonder if a previous town councillor lived there? After 100yds there is a side narrow lane which boasts a 40mph sign (Islandstone lane). Walkers, cyclists, horses – no problem.
You couldn’t make it up – and I didn’t !
August 21, 2023
I’m not sure I agree, Dave, our council spent months on end on a four-way junction in the town centre, and it’s no better now, in three directions there aren’t any better turning left if nothing is coming lanes which work, only one has an extra lane, and that is now dangerous when someone from out of town turns and doesn’t know that both lanes turn together and to stay in their lane (one goes into a new supermarket), no improvement for cyclists.
Just look how much the Councils have to spend on individual taxis to schools now, it will make your eyes water! It’s not only going on old age care.
August 21, 2023
Traffic modelling has improved enormously since computer simulations became feasible. There is little excuse for not modelling with an aim to design to speed traffic flows – which of course has the side benefit that it reduces pollution, particularly if it reduces the need for stop-start traffic and low gears. The Welsh move to 20mph limits will increase pollution in Welsh villages and towns. Which academics will pop up to tell us the truth, now that Khan has made it clear that exposing the truth about ULEZ is unwelcome to him.
August 21, 2023
Good morning Sir John
Each day you present us with the dilemmas that the Country faces, each day there is only one true answer, 13 years of mismanagement by a Conservative Government.
There has been nothing wrong with the Conservative Partyās election promises all sound and the majority of us voted for them. The real problem is those that get appointed to Government are not Conservatives, it would appear they entered politics under false pretences. Each and every-time in the last 13 years once power had been secured, conservative policies have been ditched. They have been ditched in favour of some unelected, unaccountable socialist controlling personal view of how the World should be run. Conservatives release people to achieve their potential, they do not enslave and control them. These socialist diktat the Conservative Government have become disciples to are from outside the UK, by those that need to suppress others, so as they donāt succeed ahead of them.
I would guess and speaking personally I would be over the moon if we had a Government that could manage the State on behalf of the electorate, that saw their duty as serving the UK electorate and above all had focus on a strong self-reliant and resilient UK economy. That is the only way the UK will be safe and secure. Its also the only way that our infrastructure will match demand.
August 21, 2023
‘Why?’
Because National Highways’ incentives are not aligned with providing us with a good road system and they have no ‘skin in the game’ to penalise them; no ‘loss’ as in profit and loss.
Then Net Zero, it again, is actively trying to stop us having the independent mobility of a car.āThese policies are pushed down onto our elected politicians at local and national level.āWe need to elect more who will refuse to comply.
August 21, 2023
Good news, and oh so obvious
āVoters wonāt accept āeconomic destructionā to reach net zero, Starmer warnedā
General secretary of GMB union tells Labour leader that rush to abandon oil and gas would be āa disasterā
Thatās the Labour Partyās bosses perspective.
Common sense really the UK is said to be .04% of the World problem in its within self, although Conservative Governments Policies of import only have increase World pollution exponentially. Then to rub salt into the wounds the Conservative Government is forcing the taxpayer to subsidies the self same polluting imports.
One could say you couldnāt make it up, but then you realize this Conservative Government is not serving the electrorate but seemingly foreign master.
Maybe voting Labour will get us a UK Socialist Party, instead of a foreign run Foreign Socialist Party
August 21, 2023
Iāve just read an article on Biznews entitled āSouth Africaās massive oil and gas bonanzaā. They are expecting exploitation of the oil and gas to āequal the wealth of the gold and diamond industriesā.
Abandoning oil and gas is surely racist? Trying to deprive Africa of its bonsella bonanza?
All WOKE councils should be expanding road use and production.
August 21, 2023
Ian B
“Maybe voting Labour will get us a UK Socialist Party, instead of a foreign run Foreign Socialist Party”
I doubt it… it will still be international organisations dictating policy!
August 21, 2023
John, I agree that the highways agency and for that matter too many other agencies are involved in making our roads difficult to use, unavailable for long periods or designed to impede the flow of traffic. Inside towns the councils put humps, chicanes, 20mph zones, reduced single-file areas or give half the road to cyclists. The priority should be the motorist who is paying for the roads! Car parks are made similarly expensive and only accessible to those with the right parking app on a smart phone. Whereas the highways agency out of towns makes our motorways more unsafe by doing away with hard shoulders, and inconveniences people with permanent speed reductions around the m25/m4 junctions or m5/m4 junctions with overhead gantries set permanently to 50mph or slower. They start roadworks and put out cones for miles of motorway six weeks ahead of works commencing, for a couple of men working on a tiny section of road. Similarly in towns there is always someone in a street near you digging it up to get at water pipes, electrical cables, internet or sewerage. Sadly these works are poorly coordinated and so no sooner has someone finished and restored the road than the next comes along to the same spot. In some areas in the suburbs there is space to put things along the verges or under pavements or return to having telephone and electricity cables able ground on poles. As for in the countryside, I agree it is laziness to put water pipes and electricity cables under roads as they could bury them in neighbouring fields but this requires wayleaves and access rights so companies and councils donāt want the bother. Most public administrations are collapsing under their own bureaucratic processes and lack of experienced staff these days. I am however not sure the private sector would do it better. They have so much ESG nonsense to concern themselves with these days that delivering a good service to customers or return a profit to investors is no longer the focus.
August 21, 2023
and finally after cars have had tyres, wheels and suspension damaged, potholes are poorly filled in. Even then slightly shallower holes very close to the offender are ignored. Why would you leave the other damage , which fails a depth test, when within a year that new break is going to become a hazard?
I return to Lodge Road in Hurst, not only is the sharpest bend surface ribboned with breaks and holes, but as you drive north over some relaid areas you meet hundreds of yards of ‘slalom round’ the shocking damage. Even when areas were relaid in the past, the broken middle stretches are left broken. Now that drivers are expected to overtake cyclists by 6′, the damage has become worse with cars, vans, even lorries crossing over the damaged middle ground. Wokingham ought to be acutely embarrassed by this well-used road.
August 21, 2023
MT
Unless the pothole has got a white line around it it will be ignored as you say
It almost seems as if the contractors are being deliberately difficult
August 21, 2023
Agreed whole sections of tarmac missing because it was never resurfaced properly in the first lace evidence is the old surface still in good condition, but now exposed when the new surface has disintegrated
August 21, 2023
The public sector seems to be a byword for administrative malaise with no risk of censure or negative personal outcome. Commercial companies deliver competitive results because they control costs and remove people from positions of responsibility if they do not deliver against a pre-defined metric. (Which might not be known by employees or public!)
I wonder if a radical solution, like completion bonuses for each deliverable is the answer? Pay council and civil servants a minimum living wage, with the remainder of their salary paid annually after independent demonstration targets have been met. A few consecutive years of not meeting targets and the bonus turns into a P45. Of course, people will game the system and deliver just to the metrics, which is human nature, but it might start councils delivering value for money. Oh, and the penalty for fraudulent paying contractors for work not completed? Personal liability of the official concerned. Let the debt collection companies reclaim the money, rather than tying up the courts.
The root cause seems to be an inability to hold public sector organisations to account for failures, mismanagement and financial waste. The roads, ever increasing council tax for adult social care and unaccountable quangos are just visible indicators of the root cause.
August 21, 2023
Very amusing. But you omitted to mention every roadworks has two safety numbers doing nothing for each worker doing some useful work; the restrictions and automatic lights left in place long after the roadworks are completed; the tendency to prefer weekend and overnight working not always to ease disruption but often just to earn overtime; the poor co-ordination of roadworks and utilities so the same bit of road is dug up for repair, then dug up again for the gas mains, repaired, dug up again for the electricity cables, repaired, dug up again for a telecomms company; repaired; dug up again for another telecomms company, repaired, dug up again for the sewage pipes, repaired, dug up again for the rainwater drain, repaired, then dug up again to resurface the whole area because the earlier repairs have keft the surface in unacceptably poor condition; then closed to install restrictive safety features and sleeping policemen; then dug up again to alter the safety features following complaints from the emergency services that the safety features are a danger to patients in ambulances or slow or block their responses thus putting lives at risk.
There are machines available that can do many of these jobs far faster and with less labour than is commonly the case. I dare say some councils are better than others in this regard. If memory serves JCB tried to get more councils interested in more efficient machines eg, the JCB Pothol Pro, but with little success. Overtime is much preferred.
August 21, 2023
Roads provides just another example of how the State no longer serves the people, failing to recognize their interests and needs. Whilst not universal, it is a widespread view, one that this Government is not up to correcting.
August 21, 2023
Roads? – its nothing to do with nationalisation of or not, it is a general infrastructure problem as a result of the economy being held back and suppressed by this Conservative Government.
NetZero that has been brought about by the UKās legislators, but it hasnāt been framed to benefit the UK. The misdirection of funding foreign governments with UK taxpayer grants and subsidies, enhances those Country’s while leaving the UK exposed to someone elseās political whims.
Our Legislators need to revisit the laws they have made that damage the UKās future and hand it to political bodies elsewhere. Our elected MPās, our Legislators need to start working for those that elected them.
August 21, 2023
We know all this Sir John, you are an MP so get your people to do something about it, we can’t?
August 21, 2023
DOM, +++++. To āmake the caseā for good sense and effective measures and policies for the people and the country from within a Party which is so obdurately insensible to the reasons and actions proposed is a futile endeavour.
Moreover, the continuation of support for the utterly useless leadership and direction of the not-a-conservative Party gives an altogether undeserved validation to its infuriating incompetence and the very real damage being done to the country by the acceptance of net zero, open borders, Windsor agreement, etc. etc. etc. etc.
How I relish the prospect of voting to depose this disgraceful and duplicitous Party, a party that I once eagerly supported and donated to when She was at the helm.
August 21, 2023
You are quite correct. I am at present fuming every time I travel on the M42 (near Birmingham) which has had repairs going on for over a year and will remain so until 2024. It is very dangerous as the lorries which should keep in the inside lane at 50 mph do not. They run wild in the middle lane and frighten you to death. There is no emergency lane to get off onto if you your car breaks down so it is very dangerous. We pay a lot of money for our car travel and it should not be put into the general pot to fund everything else but road maintenance. Thank you for bringing this important topic up. Please try to do something about it. Other countries do not have this problem but, of course, until recently we were paying for them to have beautiful roads with out large contribution to the EU!
August 21, 2023
Linda, if those lorries ‘run wild’ as you suggest and they are UK drivers, they’d soon lose their licence, the variable speed cameras are on all the time, four offences in three years, and they lose their jobs. If they are in the middle lane, it is perhaps because someone is dawdling doing 40 mph on the inside lane and they only have so many driving hours per day to work.
August 21, 2023
Roads – I am reminded of that other great consumer of taxpayer funding HS2. Maybe the intention is that with HS2 we move all those people around that need to travel, the fact that it goes from nowhere to nowhere is by-the-by. Even that journey will be quicker by car on our congested roads.
I think what is really being said and forced on the UK by this Conservative Government and our Legislators, is you work from home and donāt go out. The flaw there is our telecoms network, internet connections, that isnāt foreign owned is about to be.
Joined up thinking by those that actually work for the UK is needed. Taxpayer funding only for UK production.
August 21, 2023
Yet another example of the failure of government and administration generally of this country, particularly England, under fake Conservatives going back more than a decade. This includes our identity too but that is a prohibited subject of course.
Back at the roads, I live in the countryside and where I am the roads are becoming narrower. At the edges, soil grit and vegetation gathers and gathers. It is never cleared. Many of these roads when built, probably had concrete kerb edges but these are not visible now if they exist, but I have seen short sections of some. If the roads are resurfaced this is only done up to the visible edge so the narrowness is reinforced. In other places where there are raised sides the banks are dragged down especially by increasingly large vehicles, when often they are forced on to them, more narrowing. Obviously the weather washes soil down all the time.
We also have an obsession with trees. Four young people were killed near here when their car hit a heavy tree trunk almost at the edge of the road. The tree is still there, looks like it will not be cut down.
There are some roads like tunnels with overhanging trees causing problems with visibilty and permanent wetness. These should be removed but who dares or wishes.
No-one managing all this cares for detail. Those in charge just look at figures on spreadsheets, and read reports. If they ever get out they don’t think this sort of detail matters and they gain nothing from doing something.
Destruction of our country continues. My children moved abroad years ago and I would urge everyone fit enough to leave too. No-one is going to help them. Almost no-one, with one or two exceptions (no conservatives), have any serious courage.
Any who speak out against injustice and failure are put down along with anyone else.
August 21, 2023
āThe responsibility of fixing potholes, and general road maintenance, is often in the hands of local councils who ā if shown to have been negligent in keeping roads properly maintained ā could be liable to pay for your car repairsā
ā¦and this morning the BBC are reporting that the average council has a deficit of Ā£33million (Ā£5billion total) ā¦repairing pot-holes are why down the list, before housing immigrants, the costs of net-zero and the cost of living
August 21, 2023
At the end of your tale of the obvious you ask “why”. Basically we are in the hands of national and local scribes competent or otherwise , but lacking in incentive to do better and in a more productive way.
The money that is collected from the motorist exceeds by far that which is spent on roads. Central Government has 95% of that money, so it is in CG hands to rectify matters. At local level, CG should instruct Local Government to appoint, after due process, a manager of roads. CG should lay down the principals of what needs to be done and disburse sufficient funds to systematically ensure a programme is completed over five years. The actual work should be put out to tender in the private sector. There should be an annual audit of progress based on value for money.
CG should apply the same principals to the national road network they are responsible for. At this level CG should invite international contractors with their own labour force to compete. I suspect we would get better value for money and speed of completion from a japanese contractor than ever we would from an indigenous one.
Will CG do it, not a snowballs chance in hell, CG thrives on mediocraty.
August 21, 2023
Why do the local councils have the contract to do roads? They obviously can’t manage it. Perhaps we need an independent road section that gets budget from the council and the central government, new home estate builders and new business estate builders to make the improvements to the budget with staff who have to achieve targets and are directly answerable to the central transport department who have a section where local people can trigger alerts to big problems.
The passport department, is that department’s entire cost covered by the cost of the passports?
The probate department is that department’s entire cost covered by the cost of probate? If one section, one department is failing their clients, could the work be transferred to another better team who then get the extra Ā£Ā£Ā£s to spend?
August 21, 2023
Oh dear AGRICOLA, that’s far too sensible. Plus there will be no money left for the payment of roads in Africa
August 21, 2023
āThe responsibility of fixing potholes, and general road maintenance, is often in the hands of local councils who ā if shown to have been negligent in keeping roads properly maintained ā could be liable to pay for your car repairsā
ā¦and this morning the BBC are reporting that the average council has a deficit of Ā£33million (Ā£5billion total) ā¦repairing pot-holes are why down the list, before housing immigrants, the costs of net-zero and the cost of living
Are the number of potholes going to increase or decrease with the governments push for the heavier EVs ā¦theyāll most likely chew up the tarmac local roads and over time destroy our motorways with the continued pounding
āEVs cause twice as much stress on roads compared to petrol vehicles, potentially worsening the pothole crisis in the UK, according to a studyā
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/06/27/evs-cause-twice-the-road-damage-of-petrol-vehicles-study-reveals/
August 21, 2023
It’s not the roads it’s just we have too much traffic – we have too many people in this country
August 21, 2023
āThe proportion of households with one car was 45% in 2021, however, the long-term trend has remained broadly constant since 1971 with an average of 43%. The proportion of households without a car has fallen from 48% in 1971 (based on the Census) to 22% in 2021ā
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-travel-survey-2021/national-travel-survey-2021-household-car-availability-and-trends-in-car-trips
Therefore no effective change since 1971 ….but traffic management, street restrictions & street calming with LTNs ULEZ Limited Parking has
August 21, 2023
Baby then!
August 21, 2023
And all the while our politicians are in awe of EVs that are heavier and do even more damage to our road services.
Our roads are no better, in some cases worse than third world countries.
What an indictment against the vast majority of our political classes and their servants.
The illegal invaders just compound the problem. When if ever will common sense be applied to overcome these never ending problems.
August 21, 2023
And your suggested alternative is what, exactly?
August 21, 2023
I’d suggest a better reporting system of inconvenient, costly roadworks where people don’t appear to be working whilst roads are coned off, direct to the government transport department to check on costs and review the contractors used for that section and apply penalties.
August 21, 2023
That sounds a lot like John Major’s Cones Hotline. DIdn’t work then. Unlikely to be any different now.
August 22, 2023
I don’t remember Majors Cones Hotline; perhaps it wasn’t well advertised. Online reporting, social media and smartphones weren’t used very much then. They could sample it in the North West, just one region, to see how many frustrated drivers there are willing to report with posters in all the service stations, adverts on local radio and local tv; if action is then taken to remedy people’s concerns then it would work. Major may not have organised it well, tried to go for whole Country reporting in one go, maybe just not a very effective leader with no follow through.
Just last night, on a major dual carriageway, the cones had been pushed to the left side of the road, closing one lane from a roundabout, through a set of traffic lights to the next set of traffic lights, no work being done, no purpose of the cones, just left near the curb but in the lane, so it couldn’t be used, you should be able to report that to the people that are paying for that set of roadworks because it is incompetent, frustrating, time and productivity consuming.
August 22, 2023
The Cones Hotline got a lot of coverage at the time and every piece of work on any major road (A-road, Motorway) had an advertisement for it.
it was a total waste of time and our money.
As for your specific example, do you know what work was being done? What materials were being used? How long those materials take to set and dry once they have been laid down?
It’s not much different to painting or wallpapering a wall. There’s an element of needing to leave things alone once the “actual work” is completed. The last thing you want is to be driving through tarmac that hasn’t fully set, ends up sticking to your tyres, and means the whole thing needs to be done again.
August 23, 2023
There was no work done on the carriageway, Peter! It was blocked to allow work vehicles to park (they could have parked on the side coned off for the actual verge work and in fact, that is where they are parking now anyway), the work was being done on the wide verge on the opposite side of the carriageway. A portacabin was parked up at the end of a service road off the main carriageway. The cones were put out totally unnecessarily; they have now this week been pushed to the side of the inside lane, still blocking the lane and causing delays for no reason whatsoever. I have photographs of it as it’s been like that for three days now I hope someone gets to grips with it before the schools return or it will be more unnecessary chaos. I don’t know who to report it to or ask why it is being left like that.
I looked up on google the cones hotline, I wasn’t aware of it and have worked in transport for 40 years. It got cancelled as quickly as it came about, probably because it wasn’t well advertised to transport companies.
The BBC said “But Mr Major and his modest proposal may be about to have the last laugh. For although the cones hotline itself is long dead (it was quietly killed off in 1995) its spirit lives on. And the initiative that spawned it – The Citizen’s Charter – has been revealed as the inspiration behind Gordon Brown’s latest attempt to reform the public services. The government has spent the past 11 years wrestling with what should, on the face of it, be the simple task of finding out what people want from public services and then giving it to them.”
So perhaps you are right and it is another argument against Citizens having any say in so called citizens charters.
August 21, 2023
An excellent summary of why our road network is such a state of decay.
It’s not that there isn’t money to do things properly – That is the lie that persists and persists!
The government has received more than enough money, taken from taxpayers and road users to more than double capacity, but the money has been diverted off elsewhere, in the form of wealth transfer:
– Offshore for alleged humanitarian reasons;
– to support greedy self governing quangos, locally and internationally;
– poured down the nearest drain – Wasted on things like HS2;
– Money just thrown at problems to make it look like HMG is doing something – The NHS is but one example;
– allowing the public sector and big government to grow, expensively, with only negative changes;
– netzero and covid;
– and so many more!
The amount of money our government has wasted over the last few decades should have seen the country flourishing, prosperous, leading the world in technology, and with a transport network second to none – instead we are seeing the effects of socialist policies that have already destroyed the best of our institutions, while the banking system is poised to engineer it’s own collapse, along with our path into a 3rd world hell hole!
August 21, 2023
Is HS2 still going ahead ?
August 21, 2023
110% Bryan
August 21, 2023
Perhaps if the money charged for the roads was spent on the roads instead of crackpot schemes like net zero and featherbedding foreign invaders (I understand French roads are much better and they don’t seem to offer these freeloaders much) we would be better off. A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talking real money. How much better could our roads be if an extra 6 million a day was spent on them? Seems no end of money when it suits and nothing when it doesn’t.
August 21, 2023
A housing giant built 463 new homes near us on 18 hectares; before the build, at all the local meetings, the Council highways officer was advised of the existing resident’s concerns about a road that connected our town to the main A road. They could have asked the builder to use some of the set-aside money to improve this link road whilst they had all of the road engineers on the project, it didn’t happen now within a few years it is dangerous, an increase of school transport and school taxi buses shuts the road at peak times as it is too narrow, there was no improvement to the junction where people need to turn right to get to the new houses causing massive delays and dangerous pull-outs because it gets so congested, there are curb stones in the road at the entrance and potholes that rip your tyres up. The Council is getting around Ā£2200 per home per year extra, yet it seems that they can’t afford anything. The other older estates now struggle to get out of their main estate roads, as turning right out of them at peak times is a nightmare.
Highways don’t seem to be considered.
August 21, 2023
Latest news on X from GBNews.
Pothole related damage related claims the highest for five years.
No surprise there then.
August 22, 2023
It’s not easy to make a claim either. One night coming back from the train station on a dark country road, we went down a very large pothole with a run-flat sport tyre, the next morning, the car dashboard was lit up the tyre had punctured. I wrote to the council a week later I was asked for the exact location of the pothole and a photograph. I thought how there is nowhere to stop to take a photo, so my husband and I drove back to locate it, with a plan for me to photograph it from the passenger side, it was filled in, end of our claim, it was just shrugged off. Now I know to pull over, stop and photograph at the time if it happens.
August 21, 2023
BBC website:
A black hole in local authority budgets continues to grow, a BBC investigation reveals, prompting fears some will not be able to provide basic services. The average council now faces a Ā£33m ($42m) predicted deficit by 2025-26 – a rise of 60% from Ā£20m two years ago.
Unison said the situation meant some councils would not be able to offer the “legal minimum of care” next year.
The government said decisions on the funding beyond the next financial year had not yet been made.
The BBC’s Shared Data Unit surveyed 190 upper-tier authorities in the UK to find out the extent of the financial difficulties facing town halls, which provide services from adult social care to bin collections and pothole repairs.
It revealed council chiefs expect to be Ā£5.2bn short of balancing the books by April 2026 even after making Ā£2.5bn of planned cuts.
At least Ā£467m will be stripped from adult care services, which include elderly care homes, respite centres and support services for people with disabilities.
This year, councils are closing leisure centres, reducing care packages and raising fees for services like waste collection and parking in order to break even.
But relax everybody, HS2 will continue to absorb much more than that deficit, think about it, you might want to save 20 minutes on a train trip from Old Oak Common to Birmingham in 10 years time.
reply No comment on big expansions of staff, consultancies, investments in property and renewables that have gone wrong etc.
August 21, 2023
reply to Sir John, Yes you are quite right, I doubt Wokingham is alone with these half-arsed measures taken in recent times. But relax we are now in the safe hands of Libdems….
I read they are on top of potholes, I would like to warn them not step in one, they might sink up to their ankles.
August 21, 2023
That’s the problem with councils; they only know how to spend money (badly), not how to make money. Nothing they put their hands into makes a profit to reinvest or build on. One thing they do top up though is their own pension schemes come what may!
August 21, 2023
Sir Redwood,
This is part of the war on the motorist / car.
The authorities are very stupid, most of the use we make of cars is NOT for pleasure, but of necessity, most people can’t do their shopping using a bicycle, we can’t stop using cars.
EV’s are expensive and not suitable for even medium length journeys.
Having closed most bank branches, we need to drive to the few open branches which are invariably 10 or more miles away.
Most people over 50 will not even contemplate riding a bike on a main street, but most amenities; coffee shop, restaurant are too far for for walking, especially in this “summer”, and obviously in winter.
August 21, 2023
āWhy? We depend on the roads for so much of our lifestyle.ā
The real reason for the totally false CAGW (now CAGB) narrative (JG : āIf you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe itā) and the Net Zero āsolutionā is to impoverish and control us and to completely change our lifestyles to match.
The reason why ices are to be banned in favour of expensive and useless bevs is to make private transport too expensive and impractical except for an elite few. The final 2050 goal is 15 minute cities, public transport and āactive travelā and far fewer vehicles on the roads despite large increases in population size.
August 21, 2023
Mick:
Its already too late.
How much worse can it get.
August 21, 2023
The best way to help the economy would be for our clown government to stop wrecking it. Quite simply, the ConSocialist Party should do the exact opposite of virtually everything they have been pushing for several years.
August 21, 2023
Itās OK they have a solution. Make car ownership unaffordable and you reduce traffic on the roads, problem solved.
August 21, 2023
Highway Authorities should not be fouling up through routes just because a few shouty people are clamouring for traffic exclusion.
These roads would have been in use by the general public long before today’s residents moved in so accept that if you live on a main road you will get traffic.
Maybe some powers should be taken away from local Highway Authorities and handed to a more strategic level of administration because A, B and C roads are just as important to the travelling public as motorway and trunk roads.
As for side and estate roads, residents need to think carefully about delivery, fire and ambulance services before they block off their roads – on their heads be it if they go too far.
August 21, 2023
Road maintenance and congestion are a real nightmare ; agree very much with the post today .
August 21, 2023
Road maintenance = potholes
Congestion = school run
August 21, 2023
The fanatics want the roads to return to nature.
Front garden veg plots and happy children frolicking where once the lorries sped ( very similar to those ideas about babies in their prams beneath towering high rises!).
No trees in the once roads presumably because they are dangerous!
No thought for the consequences of their scams and dreams.
Iām doing this on a āhot spotā from a phone.
No internet for several days on and off.
No 4g kicking in.
All AI tests say all is OK
BT man told of works at exchange causing unfathomable problems.
Much road digging too.
August 21, 2023
In our area, we are seeing vast spending on new roads including a new motorway junction. The business case for this work must have been done years ago because the offices they were supposed to cater for were demolished a decade ago and the jobs moved to the cities. We are getting a new bypass that bypasses nothing and I suspect is to open up previously inaccessible farmland for more housing. Your Government continues to flood our country with hundreds of thousands of extra people we neither want nor need and then you complain about road capacity! Sort out the root cause for the chaos instead of trying to fix a problem that shouldnāt even exist.
August 21, 2023
A surprising comment (BS?) from Sir John. In England only 50% of lorry traffic and 33% of car traffic are on trunk roads part of National Highways England. All the rest is on non-trunk roads the responsibility for maintenance of which falls with County Councils/Unitary Authorities, ie the part that has seen its dotation from the State go down by 40% since the 2010s.
And it is more likely than not that Ā“getting to work, dropping children off at schools, and getting to the shopsā is done daily on this locally administered network of non-trunk roads.
So the question is: what purpose does Sir John has in skewing the problem as he does it today? Is it āanother bee in his bonnetā? Another senseless attack on his own party and Government? The first sign of Alzheimer? What would his solution be to the trunk roadsā problem? Extended toll road systems or vignettes as on major European motorways? And cui bono?
A really Ā“interestingā topic for a recess of Parliament Monday, or is it not?
Reply My comment is aimed mainly at local highways authorities who control and mismanage all adopted roads save for most motorways and a handful of dualled A roads
August 21, 2023
Repky to Reply,
we have a Secretary of State for councils. All have proved utterly useless over 14 years, from planning legislation changes under Boles, huge community charge increases, instead of manifesto promise to freezing the tax, by Javid, no reform of councils or holding them to account.
Even the way your party changed funding through NHB and CIL, no one checks to see how the money is spent ie CIL Community Infrastructure Levy. Clue is in the title! Same for All the Urban villages(AKA urban ghettos) your party/govt built, where was the infrastructure!!
Hef is correct, your ministers had the ability and power to bring about change. You brought in mayors against public wishes, as additional cost who have responsibility for roads!
Another deflection JR. Accountability needs to be accepted by your party and govt.ās over 14 years!
August 21, 2023
Hef,
the alleged drop since 2010 you cite is not correct as NHB and CIL were introduced to replace some of the council grant funding to force them to build houses as part of the planning legislation changes under Boles. The sentiment about JRs party and govt responsible spot on.
August 22, 2023
Hefner & Hope
A big + 1 to you both.
August 21, 2023
They’re good at building useless cycle lanes
August 22, 2023
ah..but the joggers and walkers like pristine surfaces and lanes to themselves.
August 21, 2023
hefner, I read people who say school spending has been cut in ‘real terms’ even though we now educate to 18 since the Tories came to power, so had an extra two years for extra children. Then the NHS spending has been cut in ‘real terms’ even though more money than ever is being pumped in. Then cuts to the military, cuts to the local councils (who are getting 1000s of extra rates from all the newbuilds), cuts to this, that and the other.
What do you think has increased 40%? Because something has, taxes haven’t gone down and council gross revenues seem to be up.
August 22, 2023
A-Tracey,
Suggest you look at your local councils infrastructure development plan. It appears a general theme across the country that the Tories have forced councils to build, changed their funding but not checked or forced councils to implement requisite infrastructure for said house building. JRās party and govt so dense and stupid not to realise that NHS and Police spending is outside council remit. May was busy cutting 20,000 police when she, and her party, knew they were implementing mass immigration and required housing for them!!
How does an education dept keep up with the illegal criminal boat people let alone the 1.2 million JRs party imported last year!! No amount of council spending or tax rises can keep up with their level of mass Immigration stupidity!
August 23, 2023
Hope, I agree with you about an apparent lack of infrastructure plans for the new housing estates, but wouldn’t you expect Local councils to take some responsibility for that? I thought they had section 106 and other funds from the builders. They also get a massive increase in local rates yearly from the move-in date onward.
The police precept from the local council is 37% of their budget. It rose 6.4% this year for band D and above properties, Band A Ā£167 pa to Band H Ā£501 pa. So I’m surprised you say the Council has no say on that spend. I thought the new police commissioners and their department liaised with the local council.
Much more could be done about real community punishment orders and getting total recompense in physical service (the correct number of nmw hours for the cost of their crime) for the local areas blighted by crime. I could think of ten jobs immediately that aren’t done now that could be done on community punishment.
I actually prefer full police officers than PCSOs.
You are correct the numbers haven’t grown with UK population growth.
Police officers – Sept 2006 141,385, 2022 142,145.
PCSOs – Sept 2006 8517, 2022 8263.
Staff and designated officers – Sept 2006 75,974, 2022 77,242.
August 24, 2023
A-Tracey,
Logical but no. Councils can write infrastructure plans, but do not have control over some other public sector bodies ie Police, health etc. they can hardly have control over some of its own responsibility like education and housing when the govt. lies to say they will do one thing for immigration knowing full well it is about ten, twenty, who knows how many times the opposite. Who could plan or budget for that?
106 orders are a sham. NHB is based on published local authority policy to charge per square metre for residential and commercial premises. Each authority varies. This was Tory planning legislation (NPPF 2010 under Boles). Grant reduced and replaced with NHB and CIL.
Govt stated it would reduce immigration in 2019 look at actual govt numbers. Even these are estimates because the govt numbers are based on estimates of people coming and going! Why? To hide the true number. As a matter of national security in a host of issues the immigration figures should be accurate.
If I said to you build me a town with appropriate infrastructure but I am not going to tell you the numbers. Could you do it? That is the current and previous situation over 14 years of Tory mismanagement. Add covid and they appear surprised services cannot cope! They forgot to close the borders from covid hotspots as well!
August 21, 2023
We know the excess weight of electric vehicles is damaging our roads yet these cars continue to be free from road tax leaving the burden to repair highways on the rest of us. EVs are mainly owned by the rich and middle-classes leaving poorer people with increased road tax to pay. My road tax has increased massively in recent years not to mention a 40% rise in car insurance. Iām sick of subsidising your net zero nonsense.
August 21, 2023
āThe state grossly overcharges for use of the roads, collecting far more in motoring taxes than it defrays in road costs.ā
Maybe, just maybe its one of those things that should be returned to purpose, not a get out for Government failures. There used to be something called a road fund licence. Then there is the situation were the more fuel used the more in duty and taxes you paid. Today according to the ONS 72% of fuel price will go to the exchequer. The other 28% is for production, delivery, wholesaler and retail cost. So the motorist is just a cash cow to be fleeced.
Then there is National Insurance – that isnāt. State pension contributions that arenāt. To many ponzi schemes being run by the State, no thought of future UK investment
The political class start out with one well meaning, imposition on people to stop them getting on with life, then salami slice and morph it into something else to stroke personal self esteem and ego. No management no results required.
UK debt has risen since around 2010 from around 40% to now over 100% of GDP it appears to all be used to fund Public Sector growth, while at the same time no one anywhere is accountable or responsible for the spend. Not a Conservative Government spending with in its means. Just money down the drain along with the UK. That seems to coincide with how long the Tories have been managing the UK lack of economy.
August 21, 2023
Has the composition of the tarmac used been changed. If the spec has been changed to cater for global warming then it would be more brittle in cold weather.
JF
August 21, 2023
certainly permeable, so rain soaks through and under. First proper frost, then ice and whoopsie – – it breaks up!
August 21, 2023
Any new tarmac will have to withstand the world āboilingā temperatures
August 21, 2023
In some places the potholes are being filled with Pot Noodles.
August 21, 2023
I think more to the point there is inadequate road reconstruction. Road beds are comprised of stones of decreasing size, finishing with the chippings in the surface dressing. Asphalt acts as an elastic sponge holding the upper layers of stone, but over time the stones do crumble away as the asphalt is pushed aside allowing stone on stone direct contact and the deeper layers need to be replaced rather than just the surface dressing. Of course, that is more expensive, so there is a temptation to make do with just surface dressing instead. When the underlying courses have already failed that soon shows up in road wear, underlining the false economy – but by then the next election has taken place…
August 21, 2023
The privatised power network company which owns the power supply monopoly in my area
caused traffic chaos for many months with four large holes over a distance of about 100m with single lane traffic, temporary traffic lights with massive tailbacks affecting two busy roads.
There was no actual cable laying activity during most of this time suggesting very poor co-ordination.
Privatising what were previously national monopolies has not been a panacea.
On the contrary it has led to very substantial increases in charges as each separate privatised entity has to pay dividends to its mostly foreign owners.
August 21, 2023
You buy a car, pay a couple of hundred quid a year and get millions of miles of roads to use. Seems like a good deal to me.
August 21, 2023
Two months or so back, a lorry destroyed a section of the ancient wall on the downstream side of Halfpenny Bridge in Lechlade on Thames. The Council closed the bridge to road traffic and the A361 south of the Thames, an important route, became inaccessible to/from Lechlade. The work needed to repair the bridge is fairly minor, yet nothing has been done to even start the work. This is typical for a Local Authority known to be so anti-car that it beggars belief.
Do they care about inconvenience and waste of time caused to so many people and businesses by the additional mileage to travel to their normal destination via the A361? Of course not, why should they?
August 22, 2023
You’d think the Lorries insurers would want this sorting out quickly; Martyn, then again, the public inconvenienced by this closure can’t sue the insurer. If the Council can rebill the work, then as you say, why has two months passed without work starting?
August 21, 2023
The prisons here are full we should get some of these jokers out to work on the roads, the farms and anywhere else where needed just like the chain gangs of old.
August 21, 2023
Deliberate and orchestrated. Control the Masses. Wake up people, YOUR government does not give a toss about you.
August 22, 2023
paul, brexit brought it home to most people that no matter what, you get what you are given. You’ve been promising for months now that a great change is coming and nothing can stop it. We’ll see…
August 22, 2023
A-TRACY – The Globalist UK Establishment will do everything in their power to prevent a TRUE Brexit as it upsets the status quo. Change WILL come believe me and there will be total panic amongst our so called “rulers”. Softly, softly catch your monkey. Unfortunately there are so many of our population STILL asleep and some will never wake up.
August 21, 2023
Dear Sir John,
Under London’s Mayor Khan, about half the road bridges across the Thames in the capital have either been closed permanently or temporarily, are severely restricted or are now open only to official vehicles. I trust that people in, say, Newcastle and Nottingham will not put up with such attacks, though Bristolians may not be much better off.
Now Mayor Khan is mooted to want to impose a toll on the Blackwall Tunnel, the only such crossing in London proper, even though the first tunnel was opened in 1897 and the second in 1967. Should he succeed, councils all round the country will doubtless exploit the opportunity to extract electronic tolls on existing heavily used roads, bridges and tunnels.
May I suggest a simple Bill to stop this happening. It could authorise tolls to be raised on public roads, bridges and tunnels ONLY where they are specifically allowed in Private Acts of Parliament for new infrastructure, where they were already in operation at end 2022 or had operated most of the previous 20 years.
Sadly , your Government ( also mine in the sense that I voted for Mr Johnson to get Brexit done) does not have much power left in domestic administration. But it can still pass legislation to protect ordinary families from abuse by public sector monopolies, as long as human rights issues are not involved. So why not?
August 21, 2023
E M Forster wrote āThe Machine Stopsā.
This government is enacting the text.