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[Bionic]

   ???After the many floods that could posibbly have been averted had the road drains been cleaned out regularly as they once were we had a visit yesterday of a gulley sucker truck in our local area. There was obviously loads of blockages in the kerb gutter drains because it took 2 trips and and an empty to service the 5 in our road alone! How many it would take to do the ones under the always flooded railway bridge is not known but the road used to be always at least 8 inches under water for a few hundred yards every time it rained a bit heavily.
To see horse pastures with water a few foot deep is concerning too when it is the lack of road drainage that causes the problem. The canal was invisible to the eye for miles!
I suppose that the local councils (in their wisdom ) will now revert to not doing them again though to save money that will only cost them far more later! The mind boggles at their 'common' sense that looks like it is not so common after all. Quite rare in fact around here 
Anyone else having the same type of experiences with their local authorities?

[Sir Tigger KC]

This is a slightly different case but still a lack of local authority common sense. 

In our town all of the street lamps are being renewed so that they are more energy efficient and cause less light pollution.  All good you might think, but instead of replacing the heads on existing poles, they have renewed the poles as well and put them all in different locations which in some places has required the road being dug up for new cables.  The laughable thing is that the lighting is not as good as it was before..... 

They've been doing this work now for over a year.  They came and marked the road for the new poles then vanished for weeks, then they reappeared and installed the new poles which were abandoned for 3 or 4 months before finally they came back and put the new lights on... 

Meanwhile the local authority is closing libraries, day centres for the elderly etc due to cutbacks and lack of money!! 

I'm thinking about doing a Freedom of Information request to find out the cost of it all, which in most peoples opinion has been totally
un-necessary! 

[Lizzie_Zoom]

This is a slightly different case but still a lack of local authority common sense. 

In our town all of the street lamps are being renewed so that they are more energy efficient and cause less light pollution.  All good you might think, but instead of replacing the heads on existing poles, they have renewed the poles as well and put them all in different locations which in some places has required the road being dug up for new cables.  The laughable thing is that the lighting is not as good as it was before..... 

They've been doing this work now for over a year.  They came and marked the road for the new poles then vanished for weeks, then they reappeared and installed the new poles which were abandoned for 3 or 4 months before finally they came back and put the new lights on... 

Meanwhile the local authority is closing libraries, day centres for the elderly etc due to cutbacks and lack of money!! 

I'm thinking about doing a Freedom of Information request to find out the cost of it all, which in most peoples opinion has been totally
un-necessary! 

The important fact about the poles is they have an infinite life as they rot and become unsafe.  In addition I believe that all road furniture, including the light masts / poles have to now be of a different specification than when the fittings were originally installed.  They must, for example, crumple in a certain way to meet modern regulations criteria.
     
With the new lighting it is also a case of the lights, in some cases, needing to be in different places to meet the requirements of the highways to have the new lights casting their brightness in the correct places for H&S reasons.

Failure to spend this money, and I understand that there are plenty of good reasons to spend it elsewhere, could result in very large insurance claims or legal litigation. So the tens of thousands spent could save millions in the long term.

[albitz]

Yet Essex county council are switching off many of its streetlights at midnight to save money and the polar bears.

[cleggy]

In Nottingham they have replaced all the street lighting, narrowed roads by using trafic islands and extending pavements into the road, added more traffic calming bumps and they have replaced all the perfectly good bus stop signs. All the traffic lights with pedestrian crossing have been replace to put the green man at shoulder height or lower. There are sure to other totally pointless things they have done but not repaired the roads.
They cut services but seem to employ more people, for example the local park formal gardens used to be well maintained by one man, when he left he was replaced by two people and now they want a head gardener. The city council have a structure full of chiefs and no indians, for every manager there is an assistant manager or two, for every assistant manager there are two or three supervisors, for every supervisor there are three or four charge hands etc and they don't seem to contribute anything in the way of actual work.
Another example of wasting resources are the two chaps who cut the grass in the park, local verges and green spaces in the months when the grass grows. I questioned as to what they do in winter and got the reply that they empty bins, so I asked who emptied them in the summer months and I got a blank stare. So I guess these two sit on their arses for four months.

The council seem all too ready to cut services but not trim their cloth to suit, they don't live in the real world.

Erewash council recently voted to cut the wages of the staff but voted for an increase in the allowances paid to councillors while bleating that services would be cut because of government cuts

Lizzie, H & S my arse, or is that S & M

[Sir Tigger KC]

The important fact about the poles is they have an infinite life as they rot and become unsafe.  In addition I believe that all road furniture, including the light masts / poles have to now be of a different specification than when the fittings were originally installed.  They must, for example, crumple in a certain way to meet modern regulations criteria.
     
With the new lighting it is also a case of the lights, in some cases, needing to be in different places to meet the requirements of the highways to have the new lights casting their brightness in the correct places for H&S reasons.

Failure to spend this money, and I understand that there are plenty of good reasons to spend it elsewhere, could result in very large insurance claims or legal litigation. So the tens of thousands spent could save millions in the long term.

On my road they removed a light on a corner which is now really dark at night and as a result is more hazardous than before.  When we asked the contractors why they were removing that light they replied that it had all been worked out on computer models, so I doubt that the designer ever visited my street!!! 

I have no doubt Lizzie that all the new rules and regulations on street furniture have emanated from the EU and so we have spent millions of pounds of taxpayers money adhering laws that are issued by an unelected body, who have no mandate from the people and are totally unaccountable!!! 

As to insurance claims and litigation. If we banned 'No win, no cost' law firms and people had to pay up front to take legal action, then that would cut spurious claims drastically in my opinion! 

[Rods2]

The important fact about the poles is they have an infinite life as they rot and become unsafe.  In addition I believe that all road furniture, including the light masts / poles have to now be of a different specification than when the fittings were originally installed.  They must, for example, crumple in a certain way to meet modern regulations criteria.
     
With the new lighting it is also a case of the lights, in some cases, needing to be in different places to meet the requirements of the highways to have the new lights casting their brightness in the correct places for H&S reasons.

Failure to spend this money, and I understand that there are plenty of good reasons to spend it elsewhere, could result in very large insurance claims or legal litigation. So the tens of thousands spent could save millions in the long term.

I think you mean finite 

You know the EU directive will have been made by an EU committee whose only knowledge will have been through lamppost manufacturer lobbiest, so it is bound to be in the UK taxpayers interest. 

Accord to the UKIP crumpet Alexandra Swann this is how EU laws are drafted:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/alexandraswann/100196500/the-terrifying-silliness-of-the-eus-committees/

She can sit on my knee anytime and tell me all about the EU's problems. I just might not remember what she tells me as my mind will be on other things. 

[aaronjb]

Accord to the UKIP crumpet Alexandra Swann this is how EU laws are drafted:

I'm not sure what her article says because I couldn't get past the picture and this snippet:

She classes herself as an Anarcho-Libertarian and believes taxation to be legalised theft