Potholes (again)!

Lmafudd · February 18

Having maligned my local area (Leicestershire) by claiming that we have the worst roads in the Midlands I find that I now have to backtrack. On Friday I visited Burton-upon-Trent. Turns out that Staffordshire produces great beer but has extremely poor roads. Today I have visited North Nottingham. To say the roads are bad is like saying that Adolf Hitler was a bit of a rascal! The roads have holes so deep and wide that damage is almost a certainty.

What the hell is going on? We pay a huge amount of road tax for various governments and councils to squander. They should stop the HS2 type vanity projects and get our roads up to spec. And soon!

Roll-on the election where I can write "None of the above" on my paper!

First_Lexus · February 18

1 hour ago, Lmafudd said:

They should stop the HS2 type vanity projects and get our roads up to spec. And soon!

Quite right! The money ‘invested’ in HS2 for very little tangible benefit would have been far better spent elsewhere. Personally I’d spend it on improving the wider railway network, but your point stands. We seem to be paying an ever increasing amount of tax for an ever decreasing level of public services.

Meanwhile, I see the erstwhile Mayor of London is spending £6m on a ‘branding’ exercise for some of the London overground lines. It’s a great example of something absolutely not needed and not voted for. Just vanity. That money could and should be better used. TBF he isn’t alone. Politicians of every party now seem to be obsessed with getting rich and/or leaving a ‘legacy.’ Whatever happened to genuine public service?

wharfhouse · February 18

1 hour ago, Lmafudd said:

Having maligned my local area (Leicestershire) by claiming that we have the worst roads in the Midlands I find that I now have to backtrack. On Friday I visited Burton-upon-Trent. Turns out that Staffordshire produces great beer but has extremely poor roads. Today I have visited North Nottingham. To say the roads are bad is like saying that Adolf Hitler was a bit of a rascal! The roads have holes so deep and wide that damage is almost a certainty.

What the hell is going on? We pay a huge amount of road tax for various governments and councils to squander. They should stop the HS2 type vanity projects and get our roads up to spec. And soon!

Roll-on the election where I can write "None of the above" on my paper!

They said after canning HS2 (the part north of Birmingham) that they would use some of that money to give to local councils to repair pot holes. Can't say I've seen any repairs happening around my way. Chances are any money just goes into filling the void in council budgets and nothing will be improved!

Malc1 · February 18

“ genuine public service “

Ed, that’s rarely ever going to happen unless you force one brilliant candidate into the role of Prime Minister …… who would rather be looking after his family and forever out of any limelight …….. who’s amazingly clever, self made financially and doesn’t care a hoot to increase their asset base one jot ……..

We actually have that splendid individual who’s honest truthful from comparatively humble beginnings and is giving 120% of his endeavour and intellect to the cause now closest to his heart …… the UK and the People of the UK ……..

Theres never been a useful politician …… so useful to the UK …… imho

Malc 👌

Malc1 · February 18

and as for Potholes …… it’s called “ traffic calming “

Malc

Lmafudd · February 18

6 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

“ genuine public service “

Ed, that’s rarely ever going to happen unless you force one brilliant candidate into the role of Prime Minister …… who would rather be looking after his family and forever out of any limelight …….. who’s amazingly clever, self made financially and doesn’t care a hoot to increase their asset base one jot ……..

We actually have that splendid individual who’s honest truthful from comparatively humble beginnings and is giving 120% of his endeavour and intellect to the cause now closest to his heart …… the UK and the People of the UK ……..

Theres never been a useful politician …… so useful to the UK …… imho

Malc 👌

Could you name names please? I'm struggling to identify any politician with integrity of any party that fits your description! There may be one who's close but he attended illegal parties but failed to resign so it can't be him!

Malc1 · February 18

There was a teetotal guy who was fined for inadvertently being there on a business need and thereby attending some stupid PMs illegal party …… but you know that I’m sure

Malc

LenT · February 18

23 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

Theres never been a useful politician …… so useful to the UK …… imho

Really, Malcolm? Never?

Bit harsh, I’d suggest. Wasn’t there an MP for Epping who turned out to be rather useful?

Name of Winston Churchill, I believe. 🤔

Lmafudd · February 18

3 minutes ago, LenT said:

Really, Malcolm? Never?

Bit harsh, I’d suggest. Wasn’t there an MP for Epping who turned out to be rather useful?

Name of Winston Churchill, I believe. 🤔

Isn't it the exception that proves the rule?

Malc1 · February 18

Yes Winston our amazing wartime PM with powerful lineage and background and with bravery beyond understanding …… seemingly fearless in all he did and stood for …… yes for sure an amazing PM

Malc

First_Lexus · February 19

23 hours ago, Lmafudd said:

Could you name names please? I'm struggling to identify any politician with integrity of any party that fits your description! There may be one who's close but he attended illegal parties but failed to resign so it can't be him!

I agree. I see Rachel Reeves accepted a £10k payment from a climate change denying organisation just a few days prior to Labour ditching their £28bn ‘Green New Deal.’ The various statements called the timing ‘unfortunate’ but didn’t really apologise…

Whether you agreed with their politics or not, politicians used to have values they believed in. They didn’t seem to just go into Parliament to get rich. It did, imho, change with Blair. Whitelaw, Howe, Healey from the 70s and 80s, and plenty before that going right back to Lloyd George (a rascal but not corrupt) and Halifax, Churchill, Eden, MacMillan et al. They believed in their ideals and believed in service.

I can’t think of one current politician on any side about whom I can say the same. Shame.

ALAW · February 19

4 hours ago, First_Lexus said:

I agree. I see Rachel Reeves accepted a £10k payment from a climate change denying organisation just a few days prior to Labour ditching their £28bn ‘Green New Deal.’ The various statements called the timing ‘unfortunate’ but didn’t really apologise…

Whether you agreed with their politics or not, politicians used to have values they believed in. They didn’t seem to just go into Parliament to get rich. It did, imho, change with Blair. Whitelaw, Howe, Healey from the 70s and 80s, and plenty before that going right back to Lloyd George (a rascal but not corrupt) and Halifax, Churchill, Eden, MacMillan et al. They believed in their ideals and believed in service.

I can’t think of one current politician on any side about whom I can say the same. Shame.

There are quite a few who have accepted donations from Russian oligarchs as well

Linas.P · February 20

I think it is just whole UK overall - roads are falling apart everywhere. Main roads are ~alright although even those are getting rough e.g. major A-Roads are quite rough, motorways slightly better, but local roads are mostly horrible and increasingly horrible. Also I would not only say pot-holes, but also surface is just rough generally, uneven, with many poorly filled patches etc.

Newbie777 · February 20

Hello,

Think roads are bad come to Oldham or Greater Manchester!

Even the motorway, the M60 has gots some really bad bits.

The issue is is down to..

Patch repairs when done, a few layers and that's it, come winter back to same situation.

Too many vehicles on the roads, can't take the loads and pounding of the vehicles.

The solution is actually

1.This countries infrastructure is broke, so raise taxes and do a proper job on the roads like they used in the 70's and 80's.

2. Invest in better public transport, that is reliable and frequent, so less cars on the road.I am not in favour of public transport, but we have bloody queues everywhere and some people wouldn't drive if public transport was good.

3. Whoever wins the tender on the roads and motorways, it needs to assessed on quality, materials and workmanship and guaranteed work, as cheap and ineffective work e means we all pay more road tax.

4. MPs who represent their areas and understand about car driving.

I am sure there is more, but will get off my soap box now.

wharfhouse · February 20

37 minutes ago, Newbie777 said:

Hello,

Think roads are bad come to Oldham or Greater Manchester!

Even the motorway, the M60 has gots some really bad bits.

The issue is is down to..

Patch repairs when done, a few layers and that's it, come winter back to same situation.

Too many vehicles on the roads, can't take the loads and pounding of the vehicles.

The solution is actually

1.This countries infrastructure is broke, so raise taxes and do a proper job on the roads like they used in the 70's and 80's.

2. Invest in better public transport, that is reliable and frequent, so less cars on the road.I am not in favour of public transport, but we have bloody queues everywhere and some people wouldn't drive if public transport was good.

3. Whoever wins the tender on the roads and motorways, it needs to assessed on quality, materials and workmanship and guaranteed work, as cheap and ineffective work e means we all pay more road tax.

4. MPs who represent their areas and understand about car driving.

I am sure there is more, but will get off my soap box now.

It's the same down here too (Berkshire) - potholes that used to be fixed a few years ago are now left - I've logged complaints with our local council and they just say the road has been inspected and deemed ok - they now have images of potholes that they won't fix that a few years ago would have been deemed dangerous - I've even raised the issue that drivers are swerving into oncoming traffic to avoid the potholes which is very dangerous - do they care - no - they just point me to the images that say they are within tolerance - obviously most drivers disagree and value their cars more than the council do!

Newbie777 · February 21

11 hours ago, wharfhouse said:

It's the same down here too (Berkshire) - potholes that used to be fixed a few years ago are now left - I've logged complaints with our local council and they just say the road has been inspected and deemed ok - they now have images of potholes that they won't fix that a few years ago would have been deemed dangerous - I've even raised the issue that drivers are swerving into oncoming traffic to avoid the potholes which is very dangerous - do they care - no - they just point me to the images that say they are within tolerance - obviously most drivers disagree and value their cars more than the council do!

I understand but it takes one big car to make a claim and then they lose thousands AND have to do the repairs, not wise at all.

Mr_Groundhog · February 21

Yes, infrastructure is dreadful even though we pay our share of tax... I wonder why! 🤔

For those stuck on false dilemmas, I would just say: cross the channel and take a look.
France has great roads (even the "bad ones" are good by comparison + have you compared their motorway resting areas to ours?) AND a high speed train network since (drum roll)... 1981!
They didn't privatise strategic parts of their economy and now WE pay into their public sector (see EDF for instance). Oh and their councils are NOT bankrupt (one in three are, in the UK).

👉 Surely some will have plenty of whataboutism to add to this, but remember: China built 25,000 km of high speed rail in the last ten years, while our pundits kept parroting the austerity lines and built zero.... To this day, some still parrot the same lines. It's the definiton of insanity.
It's not a zero-sum game as they have us believe. If you invest in infrastructure you're not poorer as a result, because you have an asset. You're not poorer because you own a house; with the difference that the BoE can print all the £ we'd need to finance these things.

Why I don't live there? Well once you have family and mortgage and job etc in one place it makes a bit harder to move.

wharfhouse · February 21

17 minutes ago, Newbie777 said:

I understand but it takes one big car to make a claim and then they lose thousands AND have to do the repairs, not wise at all.

I try and report then online aroubd where I live - if they aren't fixed and I or anyone I know subsequently damages their car in one then a claim should be successful as they knew of the pothole. If they aren't aware of the pothole they get out of paying.

Mr_Groundhog · February 21

On 2/18/2024 at 6:13 PM, wharfhouse said:

They said after canning HS2 (the part north of Birmingham) that they would use some of that money to give to local councils to repair pot holes. Can't say I've seen any repairs happening around my way. Chances are any money just goes into filling the void in council budgets and nothing will be improved!

It's worse: they paid good money to buy that land and they'll now sell it to party donors at a discount.

@Lmafudd @LenT Not for the Bengals he wasn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

wharfhouse · February 21

1 minute ago, Mr_Groundhog said:

Yes, infrastructure is dreadful even though we pay our share of tax... I wonder why! 🤔

For those stuck on false dilemmas, I would just say: cross the channel and take a look.
France has great roads (even the "bad ones" are good by comparison, and have you compared their motorway resting areas to ours?) AND a high speed train network since (drum roll)... 1981! Moreover, their train stations are pretty neat too.
They didn't privatise strategic parts of their economy and now WE pay into their public sector (see EDF for instance). Oh and their councils are NOT bankrupt (one in three are, in the UK).

👉 Surely some will have plenty of whataboutism to add to this, but remember: China built 25,000 km of high speed rail in the last ten years, while our pundits kept parroting the austerity lines and built zero.... To this day, some still parrot the same lines. It's the definiton of insanity.

Why I don't live there? Well once you have family and mortgage and job etc in one place it makes a bit harder to move.

TBF taxes in France are higher than the UK - however they certainly have better public services with that money and a much better state pension (though are struggling to afford that now).

H3XME · February 21

On 2/18/2024 at 5:02 PM, Lmafudd said:

What the hell is going on? We pay a huge amount of road tax for various governments and councils to squander. They should stop the HS2 type vanity projects and get our roads up to spec. And soon!

It would also help if people worked from home.. at least the ones that can. Companies make a lot of staff commute for "no reason". The traffic is getting worse each year, we need less people on the roads. Nobody wants to use public transport. It takes ages, so not really a solution, but working from home would certainly help.

My commute is roughly 9 miles. Mixture of busy 40mph dual carriageways riddled with traffic lights every 400yards and regular 30mph roads. It's the time of the year where councils are using up their budget before the end of their financial year, so roadworks are everywhere. It takes me an hour to get home at 5pm. it's a 20-30min journey in the morning as I leave early enough.

There used to be a "collapsed" manhole cover on one of the roads, causing the cover to be 3 inches below the road surface. I would always look out for it, but one day I couldn't avoid it due to oncoming traffic & cyclist and unfortunately cracked my alloy. I made a claim with my council, explained what happened, told them the exact location with a screenshot from Google Streetview. After 2 weeks of waiting they replied and asked me to take a photo of the pothole as evidence. I was away on holiday when they replied so I couldn't go out there. When i returned home a week later, that pothole was "coincidentally" mended and I wasn't able to take a photo anymore... I mean yes, it could've been a coincidence because this happened a lot to other people too, so I'm sure I wasn't the only one who tried to make a claim. I felt a bit fobbed off if I'm honest. Couldn't go any further with it as I wasn't able to supply evidence in time... This was sometime 2 years ago and now the very same pothole is becoming deep again.. ridiculous.

wharfhouse · February 21

2 minutes ago, H3XME said:

It would also help if people worked from home.. at least the ones that can. Companies make a lot of staff commute for "no reason". The traffic is getting worse each year, we need less people on the roads. Nobody wants to use public transport. It takes ages, so not really a solution, but working from home would certainly help.

My commute is roughly 9 miles. Mixture of busy 40mph dual carriageways riddled with traffic lights every 400yards and regular 30mph roads. It's the time of the year where councils are using up their budget before the end of their financial year, so roadworks are everywhere. It takes me an hour to get home at 5pm. it's a 20-30min journey in the morning as I leave early enough.

There used to be a "collapsed" manhole cover on one of the roads, causing the cover to be 3 inches below the road surface. I would always look out for it, but one day I couldn't avoid it due to oncoming traffic & cyclist and unfortunately cracked my alloy. I made a claim with my council, explained what happened, told them the exact location with a screenshot from Google Streetview. After 2 weeks of waiting they replied and asked me to take a photo of the pothole as evidence. I was away on holiday when they replied so I couldn't go out there. When i returned home a week later, that pothole was "coincidentally" mended and I wasn't able to take a photo anymore... I mean yes, it could've been a coincidence because this happened a lot to other people too, so I'm sure I wasn't the only one who tried to make a claim. I felt a bit fobbed off if I'm honest. Couldn't go any further with it as I wasn't able to supply evidence in time... This was sometime 2 years ago and now the very same pothole is becoming deep again.. ridiculous.

I often wonder what would happen if when the council say to take a photo of a pothole I called the police and said I've been instructed by the council to take a photo of the pothole so could they please stop the traffic for a few moments so I can do that safely...!

Mr_Groundhog · February 21

10 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

TBF taxes in France are higher than the UK - however they certainly have better public services with that money and a much better state pension (though are struggling to afford that now).

I'd gladly pay more if I saw things improve as a result. Again, it's not a zero-sum game. Services can be provided if there is political will todo so because we have sovereignty over our money supply. Nobody said we can't afford to bail out the banks in 2008.

10 minutes ago, H3XME said:

It would also help if people worked from home..

I totally agree.... so many small-ego managers who need to see bums on seats for no reason! And often you go to the office to talk to people who aren't there!

13 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

I try and report then online aroubd where I live - if they aren't fixed and I or anyone I know subsequently damages their car in one then a claim should be successful as they knew of the pothole. If they aren't aware of the pothole they get out of paying.

You're a hero. I try to do the same but in some places it's impossible to take pictures (motorways for instance). Again, that's doing their job for them on top of it all.... it makes my blood boil because at best they patch, not fix (repave).

Mr_Groundhog · February 21

IMHO there are two things at the root of all this decay:
The austerity mantras + a broken, failed local finance model: shifts the burden of social care (and too many other things) on local Councils, so Council Tax keeps increasing and it's easier for central Gov to make their books look good.

If only there was a party running on these real-world things!

Malc1 · February 21

56 minutes ago, Mr_Groundhog said:

IMHO there are two things at the root of all this decay:
The austerity mantras + a broken, failed local finance model: shifts the burden of social care (and too many other things) on local Councils, so Council Tax keeps increasing and it's easier for central Gov to make their books look good.

If only there was a party running on these real-world things!

That Party sounds a great idea …….. just have one. Slow down the traffic even more …… we don’t need 20mph speed zones, just more potholes to slow down the traffic ……. it’s Planning I’m sure and saves the Authorities money …… just don’t spend what they haven’t got 😄 …… saves on tax rises too

Best to give up moaning whingeing and whining ……. just accept it’s what it is …… makes for a quieter less stressful life …….. more tea vicar 👍 ……. and be HAPPY

Malc