Non-sensical money wasting

[welshjon81]

Exercise equipment in parks - Is it just me or do others think these are a monumental waste of tax payers money? I never see anyone ever using them, except for the odd few, mainly young kids or teenagers playing on them as a novelty. There must thousands of these set up around the UK, I dread to think how many millions wasted.

[interstellar]

5m cycle paths. They are everywhere I live and almost wider than the roads. They have spent the last 7 years putting them in and hardly anyone uses them at all. Such a waste without a push on cycling to work etc and I am a cyclist but its bonkers!

[welshjon81]

interstellar said:

5m cycle paths. They are everywhere I live and almost wider than the roads. They have spent the last 7 years putting them in and hardly anyone uses them at all. Such a waste without a push on cycling to work etc and I am a cyclist but its bonkers!

Imagine the amount of pot holes they could have filled with that money....

[_Rodders_]

welshjon81 said:

Exercise equipment in parks - Is it just me or do others think these are a monumental waste of tax payers money? I never see anyone ever using them, except for the odd few, mainly young kids or teenagers playing on them as a novelty. There must thousands of these set up around the UK, I dread to think how many millions wasted.

I think it depends where you live. You can put all the free stuff in you like but if it's not looked after by the community it very quickly becomes somewhere you don't really want to visit.

I look at some of the communal facilities you see in some of the nicer bits of Europe and I think they wouldn't last a few days in my town before being stolen, vandalised or monopolised by undesirables.

But I generally agree, it quickly becomes nothing more than a novelty play area with a few extra risks because the bearings are half seized and there's some rusty corners where someone's lobbed a brick at it and taken the paint off.

[Puggit]

Puggit Jnr works in a Costa Coffee at a motorway service station.

Unlimited non-sensical money wasting!

[Dog Biscuit]

You've wasted a hyphen in the title as it's 'nonsensical'!

[Wacky Racer]

welshjon81 said:

Exercise equipment in parks - Is it just me or do others think these are a monumental waste of tax payers money? I never see anyone ever using them, except for the odd few, mainly young kids or teenagers playing on them as a novelty. There must thousands of these set up around the UK, I dread to think how many millions wasted.

I take it you don't mean things like roundabouts, see saws, swings, slides I hope.

[zalrak]

Unwanted cycle lanes - £1.7m to install, £2.17m to remove a few years later. Totally bonkers...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg267yp7g7o#:...

[Juan B]

£100,000,000,000 on a train, to get to London less than an hour faster than an existing one.

[55palfers]

Juan B said:

£100,000,000,000 on a train, to get to London less than an hour faster than an existing one.

That won't be operational for another 10 years and another God knows how many billions.

[Panamax]

Juan B said:

£100,000,000,000 on a train, to get to London less than an hour faster than an existing one.

You probably wouldn't have built the Channel Tunnel, or HS1 or the Elizabeth Line, or any other major public expenditure projects. UK train travel is laughable compared with the Continent. It's not just a question of speed, it's also capacity.

Why are the high speed rail stations at Ashford and Ebbsfleet not in use? Because there's nowhere for the trains to go other than St Pancras. It's those short journeys on fast trains that make no sense. What needs to be addressed is stuff like the comical 5 hours to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

[POIDH]

welshjon81 said:

interstellar said:

5m cycle paths. They are everywhere I live and almost wider than the roads. They have spent the last 7 years putting them in and hardly anyone uses them at all. Such a waste without a push on cycling to work etc and I am a cyclist but its bonkers!

Imagine the amount of pot holes they could have filled with that money....

Imagine the amount of money our schools and hospitals would have if general taxation did not have to go into road repairs, parking of private vehicles in public spaces, road creation, policing and more.
Imagine a city where you had a fast, health, and space efficient way of getting round that did not require you to be wealthy to afford.
Imagine how many people will slowly start using those bike lanes, and in a decade you find that traffic levels have dropped.

(Looking at the photo, it is not like you are short of space or that the road traffic levels require as much space for cars as was allocated originally.)

[Bluevanman]

Panamax said:

You probably wouldn't have built the Channel Tunnel, or HS1 or the Elizabeth Line, or any other major public expenditure projects. UK train travel is laughable compared with the Continent. It's not just a question of speed, it's also capacity.

Why are the high speed rail stations at Ashford and Ebbsfleet not in use? Because there's nowhere for the trains to go other than St Pancras. It's those short journeys on fast trains that make no sense. What needs to be addressed is stuff like the comical 5 hours to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

I was only watching the lunchtime news about HS2 and I realised I didn't know where HS1 was lol

[LunarOne]

Panamax said:

Juan B said:

£100,000,000,000 on a train, to get to London less than an hour faster than an existing one.

You probably wouldn't have built the Channel Tunnel, or HS1 or the Elizabeth Line, or any other major public expenditure projects. UK train travel is laughable compared with the Continent. It's not just a question of speed, it's also capacity.

Why are the high speed rail stations at Ashford and Ebbsfleet not in use? Because there's nowhere for the trains to go other than St Pancras. It's those short journeys on fast trains that make no sense. What needs to be addressed is stuff like the comical 5 hours to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

I have a colleague that lives very close to Ashford, and needs to travel to our office in Paris quite frequently. Only now he has to travel into London so that two hours later he can travel past his house on his way to Paris. Bonkers.

[P-Jay]

LunarOne said:

Panamax said:

Juan B said:

£100,000,000,000 on a train, to get to London less than an hour faster than an existing one.

You probably wouldn't have built the Channel Tunnel, or HS1 or the Elizabeth Line, or any other major public expenditure projects. UK train travel is laughable compared with the Continent. It's not just a question of speed, it's also capacity.

Why are the high speed rail stations at Ashford and Ebbsfleet not in use? Because there's nowhere for the trains to go other than St Pancras. It's those short journeys on fast trains that make no sense. What needs to be addressed is stuff like the comical 5 hours to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

I have a colleague that lives very close to Ashford, and needs to travel to our office in Paris quite frequently. Only now he has to travel into London so that two hours later he can travel past his house on his way to Paris. Bonkers.

This still grinds my gears... I've thought about taking Eurostar so many times, but it's always the same problem. Train into Paddington, 30 mins on the tube with 2 kids and suitcases etc, then get on the Eurostar, all for merely 3 times the cost and 5 times the hours of flying to Paris. I wouldn't mind if they put an airport style station somewhere South East of London for park and ride, nope it's Central London or fk off.

[LunarOne]

P-Jay said:

LunarOne said:

Panamax said:

Juan B said:

£100,000,000,000 on a train, to get to London less than an hour faster than an existing one.

You probably wouldn't have built the Channel Tunnel, or HS1 or the Elizabeth Line, or any other major public expenditure projects. UK train travel is laughable compared with the Continent. It's not just a question of speed, it's also capacity.

Why are the high speed rail stations at Ashford and Ebbsfleet not in use? Because there's nowhere for the trains to go other than St Pancras. It's those short journeys on fast trains that make no sense. What needs to be addressed is stuff like the comical 5 hours to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

I have a colleague that lives very close to Ashford, and needs to travel to our office in Paris quite frequently. Only now he has to travel into London so that two hours later he can travel past his house on his way to Paris. Bonkers.

This still grinds my gears... I've thought about taking Eurostar so many times, but it's always the same problem. Train into Paddington, 30 mins on the tube with 2 kids and suitcases etc, then get on the Eurostar, all for merely 3 times the cost and 5 times the hours of flying to Paris. I wouldn't mind if they put an airport style station somewhere South East of London for park and ride, nope it's Central London or fk off.

Yep, I have to make the same journey, only I live 10 minutes SW of LHR by taxi. So I can either do "the sensible thing" and take ages getting to St. Pancreas (yes I know it's really St. Pancras), or I can save money, 2.5 hours and £100s by taking a plane to CDG. The only thing that makes the train better possiblt better is that my flight back to LHR from CDG on a Friday evening is almost always delayed by an hour or more. But I'm sure they won't let me check in an hour late! Oh, and the carbon emissions, Why are trains so flipping expensive that taking an aeroplane is significantly cheaper?

[48k]

Juan B said:

£100,000,000,000 on a train, to get to London less than an hour faster than an existing one.

HS2 is about capacity not speed. Far from a waste of money.

[Bluevanman]

48k said:

HS2 is about capacity not speed. Far from a waste of money.

Wouldn't a normal speed train service combined with more stations on the same route increase capacity further ?

[Spare tyre]

welshjon81 said:

Exercise equipment in parks - Is it just me or do others think these are a monumental waste of tax payers money? I never see anyone ever using them, except for the odd few, mainly young kids or teenagers playing on them as a novelty. There must thousands of these set up around the UK, I dread to think how many millions wasted.

Our local park had some robust decent ish equipment installed

About a month in it got damaged and all chained up

4 years later it’s still chained up

Don’t get me started on jazzy zebra crossings we have near by - not new but redone

[Spare tyre]

We visit numerous libraries across our area with kids - they do volunteer led reading, writing etc events

4 of the 5 libraries have private security on the door as they have issues with teens

That s a lot of money down the tax payer drain, you have to wonder if all the libraries in my town could magically put their security guard budget collectively in a lot it could probably cover a copper or two

On a similar note where my parents live is alright, people behave and get along. In the 40 years they have lived there nothing that exciting has happened

All the lampposts have had a little sign attached to them saying no drinking or antisocial behaviour, with threats of a fine. Bonkers, I can imagine scallywags transiting the area and doing a 180 because the signs say to behave

I can only imagine how much the meetings, design and erection of the signs costed

Edited by Spare tyre on Monday 13th April 18:00