POT HOLE SCANDAL

POT HOLE SCANDAL

If you have not noticed the state of our roads you are probably a Hermit. Despite the fact that year on year Councils are filling more and more holes, they can’t keep up. The National infrastructure is falling apart before our eyes in the name of “Austerity”. Patches on patches does not work yet the money to resurface roads that comes from central government has all but disappeared. In fact for unclassified roads it has disappeared, last year’s allocation was Zero.

 

We have more pressure on our roads due to our terrain and weather conditions, the Pennines do us no favors in that regard, yet more is spent on Transport in the South East year on year. Kings Cross had more money spent in one year than ten years of funding for the whole of Yorkshire.

Motorists, and Bikers, pay duty on fuel, VAT on fuel, Vat on Duty on fuel, tax on our insurance and Road Tax, none of this finds a way onto our Roads.

 

 

Kirklees Potholing update –

 

Between 1 April 2017 and 13 March 2018 has seen us repair 21,415 potholes which were either reported by the councils safety inspectors, yourselves, members of the public or identified by the teams whilst out working on the roads - but we still have a backlog of 3450 left to repair.

 

The recent snow and ice has made this situation worse with new potholes at different locations on our roads, and when it is snowing the crews can’t repair the potholes, they are busy gritting and supporting the winter operations.

 

To address this we are deploying additional resources to catch up.

There will be 12 potholing gangs heading out on Monday, weather permitting, including the 2 MultiHog machines. This is 3 times our normal potholing resource.

 

POT HOLES NUMBERS

 

POT HOLE NUMBERS

 

 

Not one of ours thankfully.

 

Always of interest so far this year we (Kirklees) have had 17,443 pot holes reported to us. At the same time we have repaired 23,744.

This is in comparison to 20,111 reported and 21,227fixed last year and 19,820 and 22,880 the year before.

 

The consistency of the numbers accurately display the fact that we are only holding our own, this is reflected nationally as funding for highways has been cut to the bone. This is at the same time as central government take a massive amount from drivers from fuel tax, VAT, Insurance Tax and Road Tax. If a small percentage of what is collected from drivers locally was put back into the roads, we could start to get on top of the problem.

 

A problem that is not helped in the current year by the increase in holes dug by the utilities.   

George Osborne’s £13bn Fiddle

George Osborne’s £13bn ‘northern powerhouse’ fund includes routine council spending on potholes

Embarrassment for government as it confirms only £5bn of announced £13bn funding is allocated for major road schemes and £3bn for rail £5bn of the claimed £13bn fund is made up of the standard allocations to local councils for road maintenance and traffic schemes.

Daniel Boffey Policy editor

Sunday 5 July 2015

George Osborne’s pledge to build a “northern powerhouse” has been condemned as “cynical pre-election spin” as it emerged that the £13bn committed to build it includes routine spending on potholes and maintenance for the A1, which comes out of London.

In further embarrassment, a communities minister was also accused of misleading parliament over the money after he claimed to MPs in the Commons last week that the government was “investing £13bn in rail in the north” for “more trains, newer trains and more regular journeys”. A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has now confirmed that the money is not just for rail.

Before the general election, the chancellor made much of his intention to “make the cities of the north a powerhouse for our economy again – with new transport and science and powerful city governance”, in what was seen as an attempt to steal votes from Labour in its strongholds and in tight marginals such as Crewe.

In a press release in March, the Treasury claimed: “To make the northern powerhouse a reality, the government has already committed to … £13bn of investment in transport in the north of England”. In parliament last week, communities minister James Wharton said: “This government is investing £13bn in rail in the north. There will be more trains, newer trains and more regular journeys.”

It has now emerged, however, that only £3bn of that money is for rail schemes – of which £1.35bn had already been allocated, mainly to upgrades in and around Manchester.

Only £5bn of the remaining £10bn is for major road schemes, including the improvements to the A1. And the remaining £5bn is made up of the standard allocations to local councils through the “Integrated Transport Block Capital Grant” for projects such as bus lanes, cycle lanes, and traffic-calming and “local highways maintenance”, including filling in potholes.

The outstanding £1.65bn for rail works out at £330m a year until 2020, for all of the north-east, Yorkshire and the north-west. Local politicians claim such amounts will prove too little to make any major infrastructure improvements.

Andy Burnham, the MP for Leigh in Greater Manchester and the frontrunner in the Labour leadership contest, called for an apology from the DCLG for misleading MPs. He said: “David Cameron must look at whether ministers have knowingly misled the Commons. George Osborne’s much-vaunted northern powerhouse has been exposed for what it is: cynical, pre-election spin. It is getting the same from the Tories that it’s always had: a northern powercut.

“If Osborne’s commitment to the north is to have any credibility, he must put his money where his mouth is and listen to long-suffering rail passengers. As Labour leader, I will devolve power to local communities and put them in the driving seat of transport planning.”

The latest embarrassment over the northern powerhouse claim follows the announcement that the government had shelved promised and vital upgrades to major rail lines in the Midlands and the north of England, just weeks after the election in which the Conservatives campaigned on rebalancing the country. Critics claimed that the government knew that those plans, central to the northern powerhouse vision, would have to be shelved a long time before the general election but had avoided announcing it for fear of losing votes.

A DCLG spokesman said: “The northern powerhouse is part of the government’s long-term economic plan to rebalance growth across the regions and nations of the UK.

“The northern powerhouse is more than transport investment. Government has committed to invest in science and technology, transport, digital and innovation, culture and tourism across the region. Alongside devolving power, this gives the north a powerful new voice.”