Local council wastes more money....

[Nagra]

Couple apply for planning permission for driveway access, council approves and agrees. Then council install pedestrian crossing and take the couple to court for trying to use the driveway they told them they could build!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1289562/Ki...

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P.S I am not a Daily Mail reader, I just followed the link from another page

[Jim the Sunderer]

It's easy to waste money when it's not your own.

[hornetrider]

30 thousand pounds to remove?? No wonder we are skint.

[Parrot of Doom]

Nagra said:

Couple apply for planning permission for driveway access, council approves and agrees. Then council install pedestrian crossing and take the couple to court for trying to use the driveway they told them they could build!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1289562/Ki...

---

P.S I am not a Daily Mail reader, I just followed the link from another page

You can't excuse the council for cocking up and wasting money, but in my view the only reason they built that driveway was to try and stop that crossing from being installed.

[Reload]

Now there's a surprise, it's our council. Well done again, Kirklees. Money that could have been spent re-surfacing the appalling road in another village which I have now reported 3 times.

[iggletiggle]

Parrot of Doom said:

Nagra said:

Couple apply for planning permission for driveway access, council approves and agrees. Then council install pedestrian crossing and take the couple to court for trying to use the driveway they told them they could build!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1289562/Ki...

---

P.S I am not a Daily Mail reader, I just followed the link from another page

You can't excuse the council for cocking up and wasting money, but in my view the only reason they built that driveway was to try and stop that crossing from being installed.

i agree - was done to try and stop the crossing outside of there property

[Nagra]

iggletiggle said:

Parrot of Doom said:

Nagra said:

Couple apply for planning permission for driveway access, council approves and agrees. Then council install pedestrian crossing and take the couple to court for trying to use the driveway they told them they could build!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1289562/Ki...

---

P.S I am not a Daily Mail reader, I just followed the link from another page

You can't excuse the council for cocking up and wasting money, but in my view the only reason they built that driveway was to try and stop that crossing from being installed.

i agree - was done to try and stop the crossing outside of there property

Regardless of the couples intention, what I found galling was the fact the council took them to court instead of admitting their mistake.

[tobeee]

But why build a crossing right at someones driveway? Chap comes home from work and can't turn in, either because the lights are red, or the lights are green but people waiting on the pavement at his entrance! Mad!

[R1chardP]

Reload said:

Now there's a surprise, it's our council. Well done again, Kirklees. Money that could have been spent re-surfacing the appalling road in another village which I have now reported 3 times.

I didn't realise it was Kirklees! I was living in Brighouse when we had the snow earlier this year and most of the roads round there were undriveable for a good week. It fks me off having paid all that council tax for them to cut back on road salt and piss the money saved away on crap like this. On top of that, because it was a bureaucrat that ballsed it up, they will quietly keep their job while we end up paying for it...

[eldar]

hornetrider said:

30 thousand pounds to remove?? No wonder we are skint.

Plus 100k to install it, plus 50k fighting (and losing the legal bits).

Someone should get fired, but they wont.

[Kevin VRs]

I would also query the prices local and national government pay for roads and ancillaries. There is no way it could possibly cost £130,000 to install a pedestrian crossing, or £30,000 to remove it. The contractors must be laughing all the way to the bank. From my research the prices quoted are roughly 10 times higher than they should be.

[A205GTI]

The contractors just as bad, surely they would realise there's been a mistake allowing the work to continue, unlesss of course they get the contract to move said crossing. hmmm

[R1chardP]

Kevin VRs said:

I would also query the prices local and national government pay for roads and ancillaries. There is no way it could possibly cost £130,000 to install a pedestrian crossing, or £30,000 to remove it. The contractors must be laughing all the way to the bank. From my research the prices quoted are roughly 10 times higher than they should be.

I would agree with that (not so sure about the 10x figure though). I used to work for a multinational civil engineering consultancy and their costing was done on Spon's books which gives a basis for estimating a cost for doing a certain pice of work (laying a sqaure metre of asphalt etc...). There is absolutely no excuse for the overall cost to be that high given that these books are freely available and designed to be unambiguous and easy to use (but fooking expensive).

That said, there would have been some simulation done to see what the overall effect on surrounding traffic would be before they decided to put it there but that would be max 10% of the overall 130k. It might not seem like it but they do put some thought into where these go (although not on this occasion)

[bazking69]

Jim the Sunderer said:

It's easy to waste money when it's not your own.

And when noone ever gets held accountable for gross incompetence...