Road Resurfacing

[mon the fish]

I'm not normally one to write a moaning letter to the council or whatever, but I feel I need to this time. The recent roadworks around my way in Aberdeenshire are a bloody joke - loose chippings everywhere, just dumped on top of the road surface. I don't know who approves or inspects these works but it's a disgrace. Cars are going to end up covered in gravel rash.

Has anyone had any joy complaining to the council about this? I just think if I don't do anything, they'll keep on doing a half-arsed job and not give a st. Saying that, not sure me moaning at them will change their ideas!

[BillyWhizz888]

I drive the tippers that deliver the tar and we've had countless
Meetings about how they are cutting costs.

What used to happen is spend a day digging and sweeping up
The mess then spray the bitumen for the start of the tar the following day

Now with cuts they rush and don't clean as much as they used
To. Then what they do is spray the bitumen and have us drive straight onit
To start laying the tar. The bitumen sticks to our tires and every stone sticks to them
And then comes flying of as we try drive away.

I've seen myself spend 2 hours scraping the tires and refusing to deliver getting no where
And we then need to grin and bear it.

Instead of jobs taking 6 days now done in 4 to cut costs

[SrMoreno]

Sounds like a surface dressing job, which is a relatively cheap fix, rather than an actual resurfacing job (i.e. replacing or overlaying with new asphalt). I would write to your MSP/MP/Councillor. You'll probably get a generic reply, but if people don't complain then we can't expect the council's policy to change.

[grumpyscot]

mon the fish said:

Has anyone had any joy complaining to the council about this? I just think if I don't do anything, they'll keep on doing a half-arsed job and not give a st. Saying that, not sure me moaning at them will change their ideas!

The council did some repairs in our street a few years ago - dumped the chips on loose tar. The first car to go up the street belonged to an old dear - her car was a mere 2 weeks old. It got cover in tar and chipped to hell.

There were several witnesses - one guy phoned the council and insisted that a street sweeper attended the scene (by which time a further three cars had gone past and were damaged).

The council had to rent cars while the damaged ones were professionally repaired. All costs were borne by the council due to "negligence". Apparently, a street sweeper should have attended immediately after the road repairs were carried out. But the driver was off sick. And the supervisor didn't bother telling the rest of the squad to hold fire until a replacement driver was found.

Since then, they haven't bothered fixing our street - we had over 40 potholes in a mere 20 metre stretch. It's now down to about 25 as many have merged together. The deepest is more than 8 inches deep and 2 feet in diameter. But the council say they have no money available, yet have resurfaced a 1/2 miles pavement that nobody uses!

This is despite 3 kids coming to grief when they came off their bikes when they hit the potholes. All instances have been reported to the council (by email) and we now share all emails with the local community council and one of the neighbours who is a lawyer.

[Nicholas Blair]

Longniddry has been in a perpetual state of road works since late last year, new ones se up last night at the railway station, total chaos again.

How many times do they need to dig and redig the same piece of road. F***n joke.

[motoGF]

You could try taking an alternative approach... http://www.fastcodesign.com/3045488/slicker-city/a...

[Kiltie]

motoGF said:

You could try taking an alternative approach... http://www.fastcodesign.com/3045488/slicker-city/a...

Superb!

[csd19]

Its the insistence on using that jet-patching pish instead of doing a proper resurfacing job. Aye great you've filled that pothole on Monday, come Thursday half the patch has broken up and is now strewn on the road. The following Monday the pothole is back to its original glory, but the cooncil have ticked that one off the maintenance list so to them it's done.

Until it gets reported, again...

Would it actually kill them to plan repairs so that they could close a stretch or lane of a road and re-lay it properly? Evidently so. Aberdeen council are too busy lining their own pockets to give a st about the roads.

[ALBA MELV]

csd19 said:

Its the insistence on using that jet-patching pish instead of doing a proper resurfacing job. Aye great you've filled that pothole on Monday, come Thursday half the patch has broken up and is now strewn on the road. The following Monday the pothole is back to its original glory, but the cooncil have ticked that one off the maintenance list so to them it's done.

Until it gets reported, again...

Would it actually kill them to plan repairs so that they could close a stretch or lane of a road and re-lay it properly? Evidently so. Aberdeen council are too busy lining their own pockets to give a st about the roads.

To give the city council their due - The industrial estate in Dyce I work on was terrible, has been for a wee while now. We got a letter telling us that the road would be closed for a week from 22 April. Contractors came and planed the road, raised the iron works, rolled a new surface and fecked off again with little disruption. Just needs the double yellows done and its finished.

Shame the burger van didn't move though as there's an old patch of tar under it while the rest is shiney new "black top"

None of this jet patched chipping ste here thankfully!

the back road from Dyce Caravans to Blackburn however........ still pish!

[csd19]

ALBA MELV said:

To give the city council their due - The industrial estate in Dyce I work on was terrible, has been for a wee while now. We got a letter telling us that the road would be closed for a week from 22 April. Contractors came and planed the road, raised the iron works, rolled a new surface and fecked off again with little disruption. Just needs the double yellows done and its finished.

Now that's what we need more of, doing a proper job from the word go instead of a half-arsed bodge that lasts as long as it takes the tar to dry.

Back road from Marshall Trailers to Kingswells is an utter disgrace - but I expect to see the annual "Closed for Resurfacing" signs back out at some point (aka more ste jet patching!).

[MrsMiggins]

I've phoned to complain on a couple of occasions and each time they've sent a sweeper out to remove the excess chippings.

It's bloody ridiculous though. They did a lot of patching on the Newmachar to Kingseat road and every one just had a bucket of loose chippings poured over the bitumen edges. They couldn't have made a twisty road more dangerous for motorbikes if they'd tried.