Dec 22 2009
Road chaos again.
Now even the good guys of last week have fallen down on the job. The Thames Valley hit gridlock on ungritted roads yesterday. The Highways Agency did not do nearly enough to keep the roads open over the last few days. I will be taking this issue up with the government when Parliament meets again. I have been in touch with WBC over local gritting today.
I am pleased to say that by this evening, 22nd December, the Wokingham main roads are flowing freely again. The Council got back on the job, as they did so well last week.I want to say thank you to all the people who took the lorries out and cleared the roads.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Three posts in one morning.
Are you snowed in, John?
Reply: Yes
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John you are right to ask questions.
Its not about having expensive equipment laying around not being used for most of the year. Its about using your brain and commonsense.
At the moment we have thousands of builders out of work or short of work , most have pick up trucks and lorries.
All that is required is for a call to go out for them to collect salt/grit from the local depot, and shovel it onto the roads.
Two men standing on the back of a lorry just dumping it off the back onto the roads, or off the sides onto the paths as it slowly travels along the road.
What could be more simple.
Yes of course some sort of payment would be required, yes someone would need to work out the routes, but for goodness sake, its not rocket science is it.
No doubt this would contravine some Health and Safety officers idea of working, but if they cannot see the commonsense of this action in order to try and save the public from getting about without broken bones, then they should be down the road pronto !
Before automatic expensive gritting lorries, this is how roads were kept open 50 years ago, when winters were really cold.
One has to ask: Are we breeding a population of university degree idiots, who cannot work out a solution to a problem without using a computer.
No wonder this Country is going to the dogs.
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MarkE Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:17 am
Others have commented here and elsewhere that we wouldn’t want our councils to invest large amounts in expensive snowclearing equipment that may not be used most years, but has anyone seen the news coverage from the USA? They do have expensive snow clearing equipment, but they also seem to use normal municipal vehicles (delivery vans and similar) with snow ploughs (as it is the USA, snow plows) fixed to the front. This does not look like an expensive peice of kit but I’ve not seen or heard about anything similar in the UK.
My father in law used to work for his local council’s parks department and has stood on the back of a truck shovelling salt and grit. Remarkably, even though this was before the current elfnsafety obsession he never fell off because he realised he could avoid doing so if he was careful, and if he wasn’t he might hurt himslef and would look a fool.
“No wonder this Country is going to the dogs.”
Wrong tense I’m afraid Alan. If it were “going” we would need someone who would stop it. Having gone, we now need someone who will reverse the last 12 years and bring the country back; a far harder task.
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JimF Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
“Sharp intake of breath…. We can’t use non-approved Contractors, Sir, and just think of the consequences if one of these lorries had an accident out on those treacherous roads, Sir; how do we know they’d be insured to the Council’s exacting standards? The ratepayers wouldn’t thank us if we ended up in Court with liability claims, would they, Sir? Sorry Sir, this is out of the question”.
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Well said Alan Jutson.
Hear hear!
I cut and pasted this from Iain Dales comments on a different subject but it applies equally here:
“Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn’t always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.
He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I’m A Victim
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing. “
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Amanda Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Great post by whoever wrote it.
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Machines too expensive? Yet another pathetic excuse from your local council. Our council has a bunch of trucks they use for everything. At the moment they have ploughs bolted on the front and gritters on the back. This is cheaper than us all staying at home and not producing anything.
When they run out of trucks local firms will help out as contractors. I have even seen a local farmer ploughing farm tracks under contract from the council.
Your council just can’t be bothered. Or have they spent it all on expenses?
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Is it a slush fund problem?
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Middle England man. No time at all for public services until he can’t drive his car in bad weather. Oh the righteous indignation !
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As my old grannie used to say – every cloud has a silver lining. With the onset of Warble Gloaming we won’t need any gritters or snow clearance gear!
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It took me 7 hours to drive 11 miles across your constituency last night, including four hours to travel one mile on the A33. Main roads like the M4 and A329(M) were safer but still very slow. Still, plenty of people had it worse than me, with many vehicles (maybe 100 large and small) seemingly stuck for the night. Things are much improved this morning.
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John;
What a difference twenty four hours can make.
Just as you were, I was impressed with WBC’s handling of the icy roads over the weekend,especially having watched the BBC’s south today programme and having seen the problems the residents of Brighton were having due to apparent non action by their local authority. People appeared very angry and people were falling over and hurting themselves.
Yesterday lunch time, I saw a couple of WBC pick-up trucks, complete with workmen and sand, starting to work on the paths near my house and thought, John’s intervention is paying dividends however, my joy was short lived; as the snow started to fall, so the trucks and men went and the snow began to really settle.
This morning, the 190 bus service appears not to be running, well at least not through Bean Oak and Norreys, sadly there are no notices on the bus stops, advising people there is no service from them.
I wonder, have they ran out of salt and grit? There is certainly a great deal of difference between the weekend’s response and the response over the last twenty four hours…..I have not seen a single gritter over the last twenty four hours but saw two runs a day over the weekend….I wonder why?
I think Alan’s idea above is a good one and perhaps he should stand as a councillor as he seems to have the common sense that appears to be so often lacking in many politicians….John excepted of course.
Reply: I agree it has been very poor yesterday and today. I am chasing it up.
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I wondered if you would change your comments after last week praising the council. As one who managed to get out of the Oracle car park by the skin of my teeth, and whose daughter had to walk 4 miles home from Reading when all roads were stuck, and no buses were running, I would suggest that the lack of gritting of any except very major roads, and those only sparingly, is the reason why all the councils were so adamant that they had enough grit this year. of course there will be enough if you drastically reduce the coverage.
Your post goes very well with the comment in teh one that follows, about fiddling with the figures, and not telling the whole truth in order to deceive. All of a piece really.
This then leads on to the ridiculous “leaders debate” in which some people will waste an hour and a half of their lives watching Brown tell lies and make stuff up for fun. When/if DC then challenges him, it will descend into an unedifying pantomime.
Surely there has been ample opportunity to expose the charlatans at PMQs and other occasions without this added palaver?
reply: I praised the Council rightly for last week. Today’s post tells them to get on and sort things out this week, when they have not gritted and salted enough. I have also been on to the officers directly.
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Check if the Councils responsible had actually bought the grit needed, or had they put off the purchase to buy after the New Year?
Yesterday I know a driver that skidded on black ice near Salisbury and a good farmer rescued him even though he’d damaged his hawthorne bush, it’s a good thing he did pull him out because the AA quoted 8 hours reponse time, the farmer mentioned that Nick was the third vehicle he’d rescued that morning, we reported it to the police in the hope they would put out a warning triangle.
My local council is very good protecting us and enabling us to go about our work and our roads were good. It’s ok for people to say people shouldn’t travel but would they say that if no one was in work to staff the police centres, the fire stations, the hospitals, restock supermarkets, deliver the daily bread and milk, if the tv stations were off and the news channels closed down, the radio network not working or the water sanitation plants closed down. Do they honestly expect all our retailers to close for a week in bad weather or should we expect our councils to make provision to keep us mobile and the simple fact is that some councils are better than others.
The insurance companies should look where all their claims have come in from and check on whether the Councils operated true duty of care as they are the people who will have the facts and figures on bad zones.
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I think the weather is a small miracle, it shows there is a God and he’s as fed up as the rest of us. Winter should be cold and hard to kill off ‘disease’ so we can have renewed growth come Spring – what more could we ask for.
By the way, are a lot of Councils not run by the Conservatives now? Who is actually responsible for keeping things flowing?
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Mike Stallard Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Comrade, I am afraid that this mention of G*d is bullying, probably of a racist nature.
I have asked the Social Services to visit your house in the near future to give you a course of counseling.
This is a written warning.
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Amanda Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 8:16 pm
He, he. Just tell me when they are due, and I’ll make sure that I ask along representatives of our local ‘door knocking’ Jehovahs Witness, and Mormons for a bit of diversity – it could be a very entertaining afternoon
I can just see it – “God said the world will end in 2012 because mankind is wicked”, ” no, no you’ve got it wrong, our beloved Prime Minister has told us the consensus is that we only have 50 days, and its only Western countries that have been wicked”. ” The Bible says ………..” ” The IPCC report says ………..”.
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Perhaps they all believed in the “met. office”, a few weeks ago they predicted a mild winter. If this is it I dread to think what a bad winter is going to be like.
But then they know all things, even what it will be like in a thousand years time!!!!!!!
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Emil Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Why would councils waste perfectly good pension money on services to their residents , especially when according to scientific concencus it should never snow again, ever, anywhere.
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Some guy in TV last night from a local council in the South declared his council would cope much better with the ice if only it would warm up a bit!
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What did the met. office say the weather was predicted to be in Berkshire yesterday? Do the Councils have prior warnings of snow and ice from the Met. Office? The M3 yesterday afternoon was insufficiently gritted and ploughed, did this catch the met office out?
We taxpayers pay for the Met. Office don’t we to predict these events in advance, if they can’t provide the information we need why bother?
Reply: I heard them say there was the possibility of snow. The highways authorities just failed to do their job
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