Roads funding: £15bn to be spent on schemes for England - BBC News The Highways Engineer in me is very happy to hear this however I do worry that this has been announced in the run up to a General election... Oh and to preempt the inevitable, this is a Highways Agency scheme, they only deal with English roads, road spending powers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were devolved years ago...
Why are there no projects in Wales / Scotland / NI? Its the first thing said on most of the places i have seen this news
they moan constantly about the state of the roads in argyll, "aw feck a broken this or that must be the freekin roads" there pretty much perfect up here. head down to the likes of kilmalcolm/paisley/Glasgow all bollox.
How long does it take to devise a new road building scheme, settle a route, overcome local objections, compulsorily purchase the land, make contracts with a construction company, and start actual work on the ground? Answer, three to five years at least. Then another three years to completion, at least. So the £15 billion mentioned (which is spread over five years at £3 Bn per year) will not start being spent until 2017 at the earliest, and won't be fully spent until 2022 or so. This leaves plenty of time for cancellations - which most of the schemes obviously will be - and George Osborne will not have to find any real money to pay for those which actually happen, since he will be long gone by then. Thus it is a perfect political announcement. Gain some kudos in time for the election, at nil real cost. Well done, George.
Great announcement by the UK government. It is identical to the one made by Maggie Thatchers government, also identical to the one made by Tony Blairs government, both of those were cancelled due to lack of funds. Strange how something can be announced for a third time and still give ministers the same warm feeling as when it was announced all those years ago! Does emphasise the old belief that a politician is telling lies when his lips are moving though.
Unfortunately I think you are right Pete, some of the smaller jobs may trickle through but the headliners will fall by the wayside. The HA will become a Go-Co which may help in the future. as long as they attract the right people to work for them that is...
A frightening aspect of this is that the more commitments are made to grandiose projects like a tunnel under Stonehenge, HST, and the more that other aspects of central government spending are "ring-fenced" (state pensions, NHS, foreign aid, some aspects of education), the less money will go to local authorities. I am sure that local authorities over the years have been guilty of much waste and inefficiency, but the fact remains that they are responsible for maintaining our local roads, and I fear that those are going from bad to worse; we are already at the point where it is becoming more and more dangerous to ride a motorcycle at night, because the risk of hitting an unknown pothole is so large. Even in daylight hours I feel that I have to pay too much attention to the road surface these days. Perhaps the situation in the England is worse than elsewhere - less money given to the councils, and heavier road use? It's certainly not down to worse weather than Scotland!
Reading this makes me smile. The roads were bad back in 2004 when I lived in East Anglia and the same year that I retired here to France. I thought that with France being so much bigger, and having many more miles of roads, they would be worse than the UK, but how wrong I was. I am not talking about motorways, but regional roads that seem to be empty and well maintained. I am probably telling most bikers what they know already as so many UK bikes can be seen here during the summer. Not sure how the French system pays for "normal" roads as there is no road tax for cars or bikes here, and I know that the diesel that I fill my car up with is about 40% cheaper per litre than the UK. Petrol might be different, but I never look at that price when it is just the price of fun.
Or another example of "Declamatory Legislation"? George Osborne’s gimmicks prove he is a true disciple of Gordon Brown - Telegraph
Junk trident and it's replacement, we are not a world super power any longer and to pretend otherwise is foolish. Deterrent my arse, feckin American and British arms manufacturers propping it up, who seriously is going to nuke us? China, oh no we won't nuke the Brits as they have trident? Behave like it would stop them? Russia? Don't think so? Islamic fundamentalists are not going to be put off by the potential threat of retaliation. Aliens? Of course we need them to deter the marauding hoards of little green men. It is no more than a v v expensive status symbol, of our once proud status as a world power.
Why not waste a bit more taxpayers money on roads and railways. We got involved in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now with IS, we hosted the Olympics, we supported over 600 peoples lives in the house of commons, we are going to put a man on the moon, what financial crisis can there be in the UK? Before you say that I live in France, yes I do, but because I dedicated 25 years of my life serving the UK in the RAF, I have no choice but to pay tax on my pension in the UK. Having said that I am not entitled to anything in the UK even using the NHS should I visit the old country. I saw the problems starting 10 years ago, that is why I decided to get out!
