It’s about the relationship between government and meeting the needs of people. And people need roads without potholes. Potholes are really dangerous, which is why they are such a political hot topic. They can literally kill cyclists. They damaged the underframes and tyres of Porsches. Everyone is affected. And if they get worse, they actually make the movement of people and goods around the UK very hard. So, we need a government in Westminster with representation through local authorities to ensure that funding can be supplied for local need to meet the need to fill potholes.
….
I know that good government could reconcile this, and some finance is essential to that process. And I know how to deliver that finance too. And we could even induce people to undertake those activities, if only we put into place the right government policies. But at present, none of those things are remotely close to the Reform agenda, and therefore, I think they need to face some political reality, as does everybody who’s thinking of voting for Reform. Because if Reform hasn’t got a policy for potholes, frankly, it hasn’t got a policy for anything else either.
The current existence of potholes shows that Labour doesn’t have a policy for potholes.
Ho Hum.
You can’t fill potholes with policies. You need tarmac and stuff.
Apparently everything is now national in scope. You can’t fix potholes unless there’s a national policy on how to do it, and money from the national government.
What? Why does city/town/county council not get some stick about it?
“we need a government in Westminster with representation through local authorities to ensure that funding can be supplied for local need to meet the need to fill potholes.”
They seem to have enough funding for cycle lanes, forests of roadsigns, barriers to stop you crossing the road, pedestrianizing miles of streets with granite slabs, dangerous new pedestrian crossings with the green man over your right shoulder instead of ahead of you, extending pavements so there aren’t any parking spaces… why do they need more just to fill a few potholes?
The problem, at all levels of government, isn’t a lack of money; it’s priorities. They care more about being able to say they’re spending billions than actually doing anything useful.
SD, they care about fucking up the roads for ordinary users. Potholes fit right into this scheme.
Sam D @ 1.40 “pedestrian crossings with the green man over your right shoulder. I first saw one of these in my town about 5 years ago and thought WTF?
But….. if you’re looking straight across the road at the green man, you aren’t looking towards the lunatic in the beemer who is on his phone and doesn’t see the red light……..
Fun factoid. For the visibly impaired there is a small triangular knob on the bottom of the stop / cross indicator that rotates when the green man is lit…..
Sam,
They seem to have enough funding for cycle lanes, forests of roadsigns, barriers to stop you crossing the road, pedestrianizing miles of streets with granite slabs, dangerous new pedestrian crossings with the green man over your right shoulder instead of ahead of you, extending pavements so there aren’t any parking spaces… why do they need more just to fill a few potholes?
I have first hand experience of how this works.
As part of our centralised state the treasury controls most council spending through grant systems. So, if the government decides something is a good idea, lets say cycle lanes, councils are told they have to build them and they must apply for funds.* Once the council gets that money it has to be spent on cycle lanes, the council can’t decide that fixing potholes would make better sense, including for cyclists.
*There’s a whole industry of well paid consultants who advise councils and other organisation such as charities and Not for Profits on how to apply for these funds.
“Fun factoid. For the visibly impaired there is a small triangular knob on the bottom of the stop / cross indicator that rotates when the green man is lit…..”
Huh. I remember seeing those as a kid, when I was small enough to be looking up at them. I always assumed it was some kind of keyhole. It never occurred to me to wonder why they’d have to lock the things…
“Once the council gets that money it has to be spent on cycle lanes, the council can’t decide that fixing potholes would make better sense, including for cyclists.”
To be fair, I was vaguely aware of that. It makes a mockery of the entire concept of local government.
If you’re an ambitious progressive politician who doesn’t think people should be driving cars in any event, it is far more interesting to focus on policies to transform society than to worry about stupid potholes – though the bicyclists might be a concern as they might be people who vote for you.
Interesting picture of local government he has. “Westminster with representation in local government” So, County Hall is a branch office of White Hall. Bollox to local people and that irritating nonsense local democracy.
“the lunatic in the beemer who is on his phone and doesn’t see the red light” is a problem readily solved by locking some of the fuckers up for a decade or two. That’s if they’ve killed or injured someone.
Else, a good whipping and a couple of days in the stocks.
The former Corrie actress who is the “Mayor” of West Yorkshire Something Something allocated millions of pounds to build a “Super Cycle Highway” between Bradford and L**ds city centres. The latest wheeze is to build a tram line between the two. The only way to do that is to build over the “Super Cycle Highway”!!!
And seeing as Bradford has two railway stations (rival railway companies refusing to link the two back in the day) running services to L**ds every 20 minutes each, it’s almost like “we’ve got Government money, how can we p*ss up the wall this time?”
In Manchester they have digital counters in the University areas showing how may times the cycle lanes are used. The terrain is different, but I’d love to see one installed at Thornbury roundabout which is top the climb out Bradford towards L**ds
Grant-related expenditure assessments by Whitehall (for England & Wales) vary across local authorities, but on average a local authority raises about a third of its income itself (from fees/charges, council tax and [up to] 50% of business rates that LA’s are allowed to keep) and receives about two thirds of its income from the state.
Larger LA’s (eg County Councils) are currently struggling with mounting social care costs. Those that had reserves have spent them – often but not always imprudently. Highway maintenance is always the first thing that is cut – often because of Washington Monument Syndrome – while the head count (particularly of “strategic directors”, HR, DEI, climate change officers, etc) remains stable. IMO, and I have some expertise in this area, there isn’t a LA in the UK where a 10% cut in expenditure could not be made more or less painlessly, and in some cases it could 20-30%.
Ryan @4:12 pm
Why “L**ds” throughout?
Public Health could be felled in its entirety. I live in an LA that recommended masking while running outdoors in 2020. The Public Health director in a Leicestershire LA admitted a few years ago that all her actions had made no damn difference and the reduction in smoking was due to tech.
Alas, block grant from central funds local government public health. Afuera that.
Ryan thinks Lords isn’t a cricket ground worth mentioning.
Who the *bleep* is cycling between Leeds and Bradford? That’s bus/train distances, cycling is Bradford ring-road to Bradford sort of distance, up to five-ish miles or so tops. And just city centre to city centre? What about Holbeck, Pudsey, Armley, Farsley, Bramley, etc etc. And who the *bleep* is living in Bradford and commuting to Leeds or vis versa ANYWAY? Other than short term stuff, If you’re working in Leeds you’d live in Leeds, if you’re working in Bradford you’d live in Bradford.
jgh, white parents with young girls may very well rather live in Leeds and commute to Bradford………
So Ritchie, the respected advisor on great affairs of state, has labored and brought forth…pot holes!
Is this what’s called ‘bathos?’
Who the *bleep* is cycling between Leeds and Bradford? That’s bus/train distances, cycling is Bradford ring-road to Bradford sort of distance, up to five-ish miles or so tops.
The proliferation of electric bikes has changed that calculation.
Since all his posts are fundamentally about himself, I wonder what’s happened between him and a pothole. Has he damaged his car on one, or tripped into one? I can’t imagine him on a bike to fall off in one, but perhaps his video editor has.
Old Glyn said:
“pot holes … Is this what’s called ‘bathos?’”
Only after it’s been raining.
L**ds because I support Bradford City and they are Sc*m…
No one uses the cycle lanes apart from for parking in the enriched areas of BD3…
Wonder how many cyclists have been literally killed by potholes over the last 50 years…
“Potholes are really dangerous” “They can literally kill cyclists” “They damaged the underframes and tyres of Porsches” …
Murphy has memories of watching cybermen attacking humans and reformats his experience of one wheel of his car dropping into a pothole as an attack by an evil alien. NO, potholes are not malicious beings, they are simply the absence of road surface materials in a small space. A lot of children’s TV is fiction.