Vocal Voices

There have been a few big infrastructure projects mooted in the UK over the last few years, HS2 and the proposed tunnel under the Irish Sea and the Stonehenge tunnel being some examples.

But to me we do have a need for a better transport infrastructure, yes, but maybe smaller less headline grabbing ones?

Coming back home on the A1 from the East Coast on Saturday I passed one junction (the one just South of the turn off for the A64) and traffic northboud was at a standstill. Three lanes on the motorway completely stopped, three lanes on the big slip road completely stopped, it was a sea of metal. Part of that is due to bad design but still, it was a sight to see.

Some (maybe most) of our railways still run on lines the Victorians built, our roads were put down on top of cart tracks in the 1920's, transport in most of our cities hasn't had any major investment in donkey's years. There's so much that needs to be done and after all, it's not a lot of use saving half an hour on a trip from London if you are subsequently stuck in traffic for twenty minutes in a city centre.

Is that 'Spagbol junction lite' near Aberford? It is a mess.

I had a round-robin email from the locally elected uselessor the other week. We have been complaining about the local roads, which were totally resurfaced about eight years ago. They have been falling to pieces almost since day one and are a patchwork of 'repairs upon repairs'.

A couple of bodgers come round with a bucket of tarred chips and just stamp them in the holes the hit them with the back of spade to flatten them - job done. They rarely last more than a few weeks, so we complain. The reply was that there is a backlog of 14 years of repairs to Leeds roads - 14 years!

We pointed out that this was down to the use of low grade materials, poor workmanship and a lack of management supervision of the process.... yet we cannot get rid of these people!

The thing is that it is often these small ticket items that make the whole thing work. There is an old proverb: look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. It still applies in so many walks of life.

Re "big" infrastructure projects .....

.... yes, but maybe smaller less headline grabbing ones?

The A303 (the primary London to SW route) has a single carriageway section up and over Camel Hill near us which is a major bottleneck in the Summer in both directions. Traffic on a Saturday at a standstill or crawling at 15mph, delays of about half an hour. Anyone local knows to avoid it.
There have been proposals to dual it for well over 20 years - Wiki states an improvement scheme was cancelled in 1998; I remember it and I'm sure that one wasn't the first. In a way, it's not a major project, it's about a 3 mile stretch, up, over and down the other side. Now, in 2021 - 6 years after the idea was resurrected again - they are actually going to make a start the improvement scheme this Autumn (so far, they've purloined a couple of fields and built a secure heavy equipment compound at the bottom of the hill); however, it could easily get cancelled again if the Treasury decides the money isn't there due to Covid. But the main problem with it has always been the interminable legal, planning, consultation and examination exercises deemed necessary before the scheme could be approved. This is the killer, and I hate to think how much money has been spent / wasted simply on the bureaucracy before a spade is actually turned.

As for Stonehenge, any scheme there is going to cost billions, be it a tunnel of whatever length or a surface road diverted well away from the Stones, simply because of the topography of the area.

Re "small" improvements ......

We have been complaining about the local roads, which were totally resurfaced about eight years ago. They have been falling to pieces almost since day one and are a patchwork of 'repairs upon repairs'.

You know, I think a lot of this is down to the Local Council mantra of "we have a pot of money we MUST spend by 31st March or we'll lose it AND not get such a big post next fiscal year". So numerous probably unnecessary roadworks are blasted through at speed in February / March - probably the worst months to be doing them - just to keep the beancounters happy.

As for standards of repair, a street in our town was singled out for a new surface a few months ago. Men came, laid tar and chippings, and went. What they singularly failed to do was remove the weeds from the kerb before they started - they just tarmaced, unevenly, up to the weeds. Go figure out how long that's going to last before problems resurface .....

In the main road near the end of the crescent where I live the surface is begiining to crack over a large area. I have reported this to the council.
It will be like a skating rink when water gets in the cracks and it freezes. It is on a bus route and alsoused by cars taking children to two schools
further up the road.
Or council replaced a traffic island with lights. After several crashes the road layout was altered butstill crashes occured. Have had another
revision which seems to have finally solved the problem.
That is until work starts on a major development further along the dual carraigeway, part of the A49 leading to a junction on the M6.
Glad I do nt have to drive that way.

TheOstrich wrote:You know, I think a lot of this is down to the Local Council mantra of "we have a pot of money we MUST spend by 31st March or we'll lose it AND not get such a big post next fiscal year". So numerous probably unnecessary roadworks are blasted through at speed in February / March - probably the worst months to be doing them - just to keep the beancounters happy.

Worse. Companies who work with public finance supply schemes to allow local government to accrue costs into a scheme which pays interest. Then they can top up the scheme with more money from the next year and get truly big jobs done which cannot be fitted into a single budget year without holding everything else up. The interest goes to reduce the cost of the top up.

But as soon as central government find out they ban the scheme and insist that the local government actually "spend" the money every year on "tangible" things. For the bigger stuff they have to petition westminster for additional funds. Which westminster then refuse....

Such is the idiocy of our government system.