[danb1979]

They're horrendous around here currently

Lancashire County Council have blamed the road conditions on the wet winter; not the right kind of rain bullshit etc... https://www.blogpreston.co.uk/2024/0...cashire-roads/

Laughable! Utter wankers they are...

This is one reason why I'm glad I stuck with 18s and non RFTs...

I've hot a few potholes recently; bent a new drop link in the process (replacing it on Thursday); fortunately the tyre took the brunt with no issues...

Our small cul de sac has some horrible potholes at the bottom in the turning circle area; all down to the bin lorries not being able to manoeuvre properly due to the smallness of the road etc

The local B roads/country lanes are shocking; the local council know this, yet they do nothing and then when they do, it lasts all of 5mins until the stamped in tarmac is pulled out again

[KRS_SN]

Originally Posted by agentorange

Is it the roads or the lousy suspension on the buses? During my last two visits to the UK I used the park and ride in Oxford and Cambridge. I was struck by the poor ride both times. These were the single crew buses with the forward control cab and rear engine. I don't remember the old Routemaster buses of my youth in London riding so rough.

Definitely the roads. A smooth motoring experience is the lowest in the council's budgetary priorities.

[Kendo67]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

A smooth motoring experience is the lowest in the council's budgetary priorities.

Our local council (Renfrewshire) has just spent (spending) £45m on improving the local museum followed by a further £22m on the town hall which is just what we need in the area - not.

K

[Pond]

Originally Posted by Kendo67

Our local council (Renfrewshire) has just spent (spending) £45m on improving the local museum followed by a further £22m on the town hall which is just what we need in the area - not.

K

Similar here. Our local (district) Council have been 'awarded' £25m from Central Gov for the 'levelling up' bollocks. In their infinite wisdom they have decided to spend the lot (and probably 50% more cos it WILL go over budget) on..........a new sports centre and swimming pool complex!

All on the site of the (perfectly adequate) existing sports centre and swimming pool complex. I don't see the advantage of a 'better' swimming pool....it is essentially a big hole full of chlorinated water. A sports centre is generally a big space with lines painted on it to accommodate various indoor sports and pastimes. We have those already. 2 Years in from the 'award' and they are still at the 'consultation' stage (wasting £1m on some mates who are architects) for ideas!

The road 50 yards from the complex is the most pothole-ridden road in the town.
I don't know if anyone here has ever had the pleasure of driving an E89 Z4 with M-sport suspension on 19" wheels with RFTs....but believe me the ride is harder than Tyson Fury with toothache! If we wanted to get to the new, or old, 'complex' we wouldn't be able to.

No plans to deal with the roads as "that comes out of a different budget" from County Council Highways!

Utter muppets. Good news, though, is that our £3,000 Council tax has just gone up by 4.5% aswell!

[Kendo67]

Originally Posted by Pond

Good news, though, is that our £3,000 Council tax has just gone up by 4.5% aswell!

Similar numbers for us , but we are now being charged extra for a 12 month permit to empty our brown garden waste bin that we only use for 6 months of the year.

K

[Pond]

Originally Posted by Kendo67

Similar numbers for us , but we are now being charged extra for a 12 month permit to empty our brown garden waste bin that we only use for 6 months of the year.

K

You lucky bas.....
We can't get one as there is a 'waiting list'.
I only want one to clear up the leaves from the Council-owned trees outside my house, which blow into my garden on a daily basis.

You couldn't make it up.

[TodmordenLad]

Apparently £8b is going to be diverted to resurfacing roads from the HS2 fiasco fund. On the news this morning.
And if you believe that this govt is actually capable of doing anything about anything whatsoever, then good luck to you 😂

[Jon TDI]

This topic has hit the local news on TV today………someone must have been listening to our conversation.

[sahajesh]

Poor Nigel Havers, having to sell his classic cars as they’re unusable with all the pot-holes.

Twat.

[Jon TDI]

Originally Posted by sahajesh

Poor Nigel Havers, having to sell his classic cars as they’re unusable with all the pot-holes.

Twat.

He should sell them on the Bidding Room.
Might get 20 quid for them

[RobUK]

The guys who do my tyres (2 replacements so far this year because of potholes) tell me that the bloke who manages pothole claims for West Sussex County Council is one of their customers and he reckons only 3% of pothole damage claims in their area are successful. Apparently West Sussex County Council have set aside £4M to fix potholes which judging by the state of the roads will do very little.

Have to say, in North Yorkshire the potholes don't seem quite so bad as down south, or maybe I haven't discovered the worst roads yet.

[ajfoggy]

Around here the council bod comes around and marks them all. Then some weeks later a contractor that doesn't give a @$@£@£! fixes them badly because they will get paid anyway. Six months later they get paid again to fix the same pot holes. The council is a complete joke, just throwing money away!

[TodmordenLad]

The worst potholes in my area are on bus routes with speed humps - a disastrous combo. The edges of the humps get damaged in no time and the adjacent tarmac crumbles and sinks. Flawed by design. All attempts at repairs are futile.

I won't start ranting about speed humps as I'd be on here all day...

[Ennoch]

Up here in the north of Scotland the state of the roads is about as bad as I've seen it anywhere, if not the worst. Rural Bulgaria has better roads than us. 8" deep potholes, trenches, blown out edges, ditches that are filled with silt and brash from the aggressive bush clearing they've carried out recently to try and undo the past ten years of not doing anything, and the road edges not cut into to allow water to drain into the now clogged ditches. The last time the main A road near me was touched properly was a bitumen and chipping job and that was twelve years ago. The last time any stretch within 20 miles either side of me was actually resurfaced must be 30 years. Not great, but when traffic was light this was manageable. Now that you have huge numbers of tourists in their oversized camper vans that they can't control, plus massively increased traffic volumes regardless of size, the roads are buggered. They're tramlined, holed, and blown up at the edges because the retards in their rented 6 berth vans can't keep their wheels on the tarmac.

The big issue up here is that the council used to do all the repairs and got a budget from central government to do so, but then the trunk roads got flogged off to third parties which took most of the budget with them, and now BEAR make a load of profit off the few trunk roads in the Highland Council area, and the council itself then has a tiny budget to do the remaining massive network which still sees heavy traffic.


Of course when they do repair stuff it's also done to a terrible standard. They seem to have completely stopped sealing the edges of repairs with bitumen these days, and when holes are plugged it's not with a permanent repair but the bagged temporary stuff that lasts five minutes, less if it's only stamped in with the guy's feet. They actually did some stuff up here the other day and it's still so soft that my trail running shoes could leave an imprint in it 48hrs later! How is that expected to last a winter?! I actually claimed successfully for two 403M wheels and a set of tyres from the council a few years ago at a total of £2900 - all thanks to a repair they'd made to a 6" deep 2m x 1m hole on the centreline that hadn't even lasted a full six weeks. Complete negligence. The problem now is that the road network is probably 25+ years in arrears of repairs, and where is the money going to come from to make up that shortfall? It's even worse up here in Scotland now the anti-car Green nut jobs are pulling the strings and don't want any money spent. They don't even want to see the A9 upgraded or indeed any road upgrades, whether for improved flow, safety or indeed any other reason.

[Wills2]

Originally Posted by TodmordenLad

Apparently £8b is going to be diverted to resurfacing roads from the HS2 fiasco fund. On the news this morning.
And if you believe that this govt is actually capable of doing anything about anything whatsoever, then good luck to you 😂

Even if they did actually spend that (which they won't) so many roads are too far gone, even good repairs won't last as the road isn't in a condition to hold them.

They need to resurface the roads, it's too late for patch repairs, but we're utterly broke I just wish they'd come out and admit what we already know.

[agentorange]

When you look at the spiders web of small roads in many counties, you have to wonder if the shortage of money may force some councils to declare a tarmac version of Beeching's Axe. Scary thought.

I didn't realize until very recently that many A roads in the UK have been de-trunked. I assume that dumps the responsibility and cost of maintaining such roads on to the local council. Cunning buggers in Westminster.

Some of the de-trunking baffles me. For example, they de-trunked the A127 from the eastern edge of London to Southend-on-Sea. I assume the excuse was that many parts of the A13 are newer with more lanes and serves a more heavily populated area of Essex. The joke is the dual-carriageway section of A127 runs right into Southend, whereas the A13 gets de-trunked and becomes a 30 mph trudge, often on on basic two-lane roads, just east of Basildon.

[TodmordenLad]

Originally Posted by Wills2

Even if they did actually spend that (which they won't) so many roads are too far gone, even good repairs won't last as the road isn't in a condition to hold them.

They need to resurface the roads, it's too late for patch repairs, but we're utterly broke I just wish they'd come out and admit what we already know.

Of course they won't spend it, another empty pledge. A bit like "levelling up". They'll probably give the money to their mates and donors.

[Wills2]

Originally Posted by TodmordenLad

Of course they won't spend it, another empty pledge. A bit like "levelling up". They'll probably give the money to their mates and donors.

Indeed, although we need to understand that the next incumbents will be given the same empty bank account so the decline will continue. (that's not a political point but economic reality)

I was born in the 70's and there was an awful lot of urban decay across the UK it feels like we're heading back to that era, it's quite depressing.

[TodmordenLad]

Originally Posted by Wills2

Indeed, although we need to understand that the next incumbents will be given the same empty bank account so the decline will continue. (that's not a political point but economic reality)

I was born in the 70's and there was an awful lot of urban decay across the UK it feels like we're heading back to that era, it's quite depressing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68625344

[Wills2]

Originally Posted by TodmordenLad

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68625344

Yeah I've seen that, my feeling on the subject appear to be backed up by the stats.

[TodmordenLad]

Originally Posted by Wills2

Yeah I've seen that, my feeling on the subject appear to be backed up by the stats.

There are so many depressing stats available on the subject of child poverty and poverty generally in the UK. Here's just one article from Reuters, published at the end of last year.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/chi...ds-2023-12-06/

"Britain ranked 37th out of the 39 nations in the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) based on income poverty rate for children and their success in reducing child poverty in a time of prosperity"

What a total and utter disgrace for the 6th largest economy in the world.

[Wills2]

Originally Posted by TodmordenLad

There are so many depressing stats available on the subject of child poverty and poverty generally in the UK. Here's just one article from Reuters, published at the end of last year.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/chi...ds-2023-12-06/

"Britain ranked 37th out of the 39 nations in the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) based on income poverty rate for children and their success in reducing child poverty in a time of prosperity"

What a total and utter disgrace for the 6th largest economy in the world.

My feeling is that's it's everything, I know other countries have issues but we seemed to have fallen so far since around 2010 lost our way and our ability, whether it's Poverty (all kinds) infrastructure as whole, city centres, urban areas, industrial planning, housing, energy, attitudes in society simple things like litter on the streets looking after the local area, many people are rude and insular etc...

I know many on here are isolated at the moment from these things but the rot is spreading, I have no idea who or what will stop where we are heading but it is our society that has created this hollowed out country we appear to be living in.

But I will say GDP isn't a great measure of a countries wealth outside of the US and China especially when you look deeper into the UK's metrics, if we were a company analysts would describe us as a "zombie", debt ridden and out of ideas with no real prospect of growth...sell rated.

Maybe it's the current weather 6 months of wind, rain and cold, but if I could leave I would.