What is going to happen to our roads?

[anonymous-user]

Ares said:

Roads are a joke. As per my other thread, I've got a £550 tyre repair bill from a pothole*:



(*which will be forwarded to the council....as I reported the pothole 7days earlier)

But chatting to my dad over the weekend, got pulled by the Police under the suspicion of being over the DD limit as he was swerving all over the road. He was avoiding potholes. The driving style we are being forced to adopt cannot be deemed safe.

Out of interest, if the council legal team asked why you went through a pothole you knew was there, where do you stand legally trying to get them to pay?

[457892345]

budgie smuggler said:

Same here, one particular junction in Basildon I use (between B&Q and Sporting Village) is now more pothole than road!

This is worst patch ive seen this year too, at first you could go into right lane and avoid them it but past month has seen that deteriorate too.

I think it will get fixed soon enough though as im sure the revenue from the red light camera must have dropped off...

[RAFsmoggy]

The roads are abysmal & quite dangerous at night. Yes, it is due to spending cuts ,nothing else !

[wst]

Boydie88 said:

The A1 near me between Baldock and Biggleswade has just had some nice new dark tarmac laid down which appears a good job.

Sadly it resembles the stuff that was put down in the village I work in that melted on the hottest day of the year last year leaving a surface that resembles the moon..

Shame that entire section (up to Alconbury) should really be upgraded to motorway and have those bloody roundabouts taken out. Especially that one on Biggleswade (S) that keeps tipping lorries over. I hate Buckden-Biggleswade...

[Atomic12C]

I wonder, if the national VED collection was reserved for road maintenance/improvements, that the UK would have enough funds to maintain and build new roads?

[budgie smuggler]

457892345 said:

This is worst patch ive seen this year too, at first you could go into right lane and avoid them it but past month has seen that deteriorate too.

I think it will get fixed soon enough though as im sure the revenue from the red light camera must have dropped off...

good point

[moffat]

The roads around me in Nottinghamshire are a disgrace and in the worst condition that I can remember. I've zero sympathy with the council and their so called lack of budget - total b0ll0cks. They've got enough money to ensure that Notts now has the most live speeds cameras, they are actively reducing nearly every decent NSL to a 50mph with no good reason and the number of expensive new SPECS is a total disgrace.

Oh and my council tax is about to go up higher than inflation.

Fixing roads etc just isn't the done thing these days, and if they do it's the quick fix rubbish which is broken up by the next period of cold and wet weather.

[Tim bo]

I read something not so long ago about why roads in this country seem to be notably worse than other European countries, lack of investment notwithstanding.

It's largely to do with the unique weather system we have here, which is quite unlike anywhere else on the planet. We're on a similar latitude to parts of Canada, yet the gulf stream up the Atlantic brings an increase in oceanic temperature which warms the isles. This means that instead of snow and ice for much of the year, we have a higher level of drizzle and rain. IOW, and should come as no surprise to anyone, it rains a lot here.

Over winter, after rainfall, any minute imperfections in the road, any small cracks or holes, fill with water. When temperatures approach zero, water starts to freeze, and expands as it does so - properties of water are almost unique in chemistry in that density is lower in a solid state than in liquid - ice is larger than water. Expansion of water turning to ice in any tiny cracks or holes therefore widens those cracks and holes; makes them larger. Then there will follow a thaw, followed by more rain, followed at some point by a freeze. As with any winter, there are continual cycles of this freeze, rain, thaw, freeze, rain, thaw. And with each cycle cracks and holes in the road get bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

Now other European (and other continental) countries in temperate zones do face this rain/freeze/thaw/rain cycle, but not nearly to the extent that these isles do, and not nearly as unpredictably.

Edited by Tim bo on Monday 19th February 15:54

[Guvernator]

Limpet said:

In the council's defence, part of the problem in this area at least, seems to be caused by utility companies digging up entire stretches of road, and then making cheap patchwork bodge repairs which seem to last about six months before breaking up. We've had SSE replacing electricity cables on my estate recently, and the state they have left the roads and pavements in beggars belief. They've just dug trenches, and patched them afterwards, often with the repair not even sitting at the same level as the surrounding surface. It's only a matter of a few good frosts before it all starts to fall apart.

I would like to see legislation passed to force any organisation digging up a road for any reason at all, to pay to have the road properly resurfaced to an agreed standard.

Yes this ^^^^

We've had our local roads dug up by the cable company, Thames water and the gas board over the last few years. Almost without fail the road repair after the works are complete has been abysmal. I'm really not sure what kind of agreements are in place for this kind of stuff but they really aren't up to scratch.

[Atomic12C]

Tim bo said:

Now other European (and other continental) countries in temperate zones do face this rain/freeze/thaw/rain cycle, but not nearly to the extent that these isles do, and not nearly as unpredictably.

Edited by Tim bo on Monday 19th February 15:54

I read somewhere that road construction standards were higher in Germany,Austria and Switzerland.
I stand to be corrected but I think they have a much thicker surface-course that has a design life of 20 years.
The UK on the other hand seems to have a design life of around 5 to 10 years.

[BiggestVern]

Atomic12C said:

Tim bo said:

Now other European (and other continental) countries in temperate zones do face this rain/freeze/thaw/rain cycle, but not nearly to the extent that these isles do, and not nearly as unpredictably.

Edited by Tim bo on Monday 19th February 15:54

I read somewhere that road construction standards were higher in Germany,Austria and Switzerland.
I stand to be corrected but I think they have a much thicker surface-course that has a design life of 20 years.
The UK on the other hand seems to have a design life of around 5 to 10 years.

You are correct, the sub-base of autobahns in Germany can be up to 10 times thicker than the same layer on British motorways. In Britain this foundation layer will vary between 400 & 700mm. In Germany, on the heaviest used or most vulnerable sections where the ground is prone to movement, the concrete can be up to 7 metres in thickness.

Strangely, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this forum, the Germans manage to build their roads at a fraction of the price it costs here.
Someone somewhere is pocketing millions while we all suffer.

[XMT]

If they stopped all the coruption at all levels including local authority level we would have plenty of money.

[Ares]

Yipper said:

Krikkit said:

The root of the problem is the lack of money given to councils - our council had to save hundreds of millions of pounds from its budgets, and as such the quality and frequency of repairs has noticeably reduced.

Part of it (imho) is the type of repair done - a lot of them are blasted with very coarse tarmac and hardly tamped down. As soon as the road freezes in winter it just fractures and disintegrates. The potholes that were fixed last year are now back with a vengeance.

The amount of money is not the problem.

The problem is how councils choose to spend it.

And councils choose to spend their money on copious backend staff with generous pensions, rather than fix frontline problems such as cr*ppy roads or homeless beggars. Because they know it p*sses people off and they will blame Tory cuts and pressure May into spending more or vote in Labour who will shower councils with limitless free cash (debt).

Councils today are less "public service providers" and more "militant political parties".

Exactly. Everything is political.

Roads were no better under Labour, despite running up a fking HUGE deficit.

[Ares]

RedSwede said:

Since I suppose the issue of tax is inevitable in this conversation, I looked up this. It is from Wikipedia so 100% guaranteed correct...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by...

Interesting that the UK is so low in it's tax contributions - especially since we have probably well above average overseas-aid and defence spend compared to some. Coupled with what is claimed to be vast public spending waste, it does give the impression that the outlook for domestic finances are not too bright.

We've pushed a low tax culture. Millions and Millions of workers pay no tax at all. Then complain we don't have Scandinavian social structure (where pretty much everyone pays tax).

The notion of a £12,000 personal allowance is a great move....and takes anyone on minimum wage out of tax, and still give them extra top-up benefits - but it reduces the amount of tax collected. Can't have it both ways.

[Ares]

ruhall said:

RedSwede said:

This is a serious question - not just a moan thread.

Our roads are terrible - we know this. They are an order of magnitude worse than most of Europe that I have experienced, even a decent percentage of former Eastern-block countries are far better.

Since the start of this year, the weather has taken a particular toll, and the patches-on-patches are completely failing. Trunk roads will no doubt get a semi-passable repair, but there doesn't seem to be anything planned for the thousands of miles of important but more minor roads. Certainly not the full scale resurface that is needed.

Generally, 10-15 years ago most roads were OK now they're not. What does everyone expect the situation to be in 10-15 years time? At the same rate of deterioration, I think a lot of routes may be impassible. Can that be left to happen?

Yes, it's already happening. One lane near me that gradually succumbed to water/surface erosion, has now been made subject of a No Motor Vehicles order. No doubt an order and a few signs were cheaper than a repair.

Another lane gradually became blocked after several collapses of the hedgerow and after no action by the local council for years, no doubt because other routes were available, one local even tried to clear it with a tractor, much to the annoyance of said council.

A drain cover was repaired locally within the past fortnight; it's already starting to break up around the edges. It took longer for them to set-up all of the warning signs and temporary traffic lights than it did to repair the hole.

Roads weren't generally OK 10-15yrs ago. They have always been dreadful at this time of year. This year has been particularly bad as despite us not having an overly bad winter, it has dipped below freezing most nights for a couple of months. That fks up the repairs to the roads made over the last 20yrs or so....throwing tons of salt on the road only exacerbates the problem.

[Ares]

captain_cynic said:

Guvernator said:

I do agree we seem to take 4 times as long to build things here and that's despite using a lot of overseas labour now who should know all about putting stuff up double quick. I really don't understand why though, what is it H&S, red tape?

IMHO, the problem with public works in the UK is two-fold.

1. Bureaucracy. Britain seems to love it's bureaucracy. A form for everything and 3-6 weeks to read it, heaven forbid you forget to dot a lower case j otherwise you'll have to start all over again. Red tape production is the third biggest industry in the UK. The public service seems to be filled with Jobsworths at the management level just trying to do as little as possibly until retirement. OK, that's embellished a little bit but there are a lot of list checkers that we could consolidate into fewer roles and fewer delays.

2. Govt contracts are license to bill. Roadworks and many other services that are ostensibly supplied by the government are outsourced to private contractors, these contractors know that a job cant be left half finished so they only half finish things until the 3rd or 4th additional cheque clears. They quote low because they know that they'll never be held to account for not delivering on time or on budget (or even at all in some cases). Govt contracts need punishment clauses like private contracts and these need to be enforced, sadly if the govt did this the Daily Wail would scream about the Bolsheviks or some such nonsense until the govt caved.

OTOH, you dont want to go too far the other way. China can build a railway station in a day... but I wouldn't want to wait there for a train. You can have fast, cheap or quality... China too often picks fast and cheap.

3. Lazy workforce/lackadaisical management that allow workers to spend most of the day sat doing nothing, except at the holy tea break, then it's a hive of activity.

Anyone sat in roadworks will see this first hand on majority of cases.

[Ares]

Faz50 said:

Ares said:

Roads are a joke. As per my other thread, I've got a £550 tyre repair bill from a pothole*:



(*which will be forwarded to the council....as I reported the pothole 7days earlier)

But chatting to my dad over the weekend, got pulled by the Police under the suspicion of being over the DD limit as he was swerving all over the road. He was avoiding potholes. The driving style we are being forced to adopt cannot be deemed safe.

Out of interest, if the council legal team asked why you went through a pothole you knew was there, where do you stand legally trying to get them to pay?

Having checked with a lawyer, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. They would if it hadn't been reported. (thats not to say I'll be successful)

Beyond that, the only alternative route I can take has worse potholes (also reported), and I don't think the headmaster at my daughter's school would accept her missing school for a week, especially the week of ISI test being done, due to a pothole.

[Ares]

Atomic12C said:

Tim bo said:

Now other European (and other continental) countries in temperate zones do face this rain/freeze/thaw/rain cycle, but not nearly to the extent that these isles do, and not nearly as unpredictably.

Edited by Tim bo on Monday 19th February 15:54

I read somewhere that road construction standards were higher in Germany,Austria and Switzerland.
I stand to be corrected but I think they have a much thicker surface-course that has a design life of 20 years.
The UK on the other hand seems to have a design life of around 5 to 10 years.

It's also the slap-dash approach to repairs over the last 20yrs that causes exponential problems.

The pothole I hit was reported yesterday....co-incidentally. It took 10 mins. They threw some tarmac in the pothole and roughly tamped it. It'll be a pothole again within 2 months.

[TameRacingDriver]

Ares said:

Roads weren't generally OK 10-15yrs ago. They have always been dreadful at this time of year. This year has been particularly bad as despite us not having an overly bad winter, it has dipped below freezing most nights for a couple of months. That fks up the repairs to the roads made over the last 20yrs or so....throwing tons of salt on the road only exacerbates the problem.

Agreed. It was about 12 years ago now when I hit a nasty pothole in Co. Durham and ruined a nearly brand new Michelin tyre - I managed to claim it back luckily, but it was a waste of half a days holiday. I seem to remember the same conversations being had on here back then.

What will happen in the future? Business as usual.

[xcseventy]

If you've driven on the A82 recently then you'll understand, but some of the potholes are unbelievable. See below:

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/a...