Jesus. Look, it was abnormally cold, the ice cracked up a load of roads, that was only a couple of months ago though and I daresay the councils will get round to repairing it soon enough.
If they get the money. Things cost money; they weren't expecting to have to spend the money so they won't have had it saved up. If you want the council to have been able to have a load of money saved up against freak occurrences they weren't expecting... I presume you'd be happy to pay a higher rate of council tax then? No, thought not. There's no sense complaining about taxes on one hand, and then complaining about the lack of tax spending on the other. Which do you want? Potholes, or no potholes?
I'd be willing to bet that when the budgets get replenished next month you'll see a flurry of road repairs getting done. Until then, it's a bugger, but basically, drive more carefully and put up with it.
DVLA road tax and fuel duty both end up in the coffers of the Exchequer, along with income tax and corporation tax. Council parking fees, along with the Congestion Charge if you live in London, are paid to the Local Authority, and are topped up by council tax and a subsidy from central government.
As can be seen, it is therefore very difficult to detail exactly how your road tax is spent, because it is divvied up in the same way as any other tax. However, there are certain related expenditures that we certainly rely on road tax and fuel tax to pay for.
For example, your parking fees might well help pay for extended car park facilities, while your resident's parking permit is probably contributing to road resurfacing or a similar project. As has been mentioned, though, council income is topped up by central government – so,ultimately, you are also paying for these projects and services through your council tax and income tax.
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tasty copy pasta
Most councils did not have even enough salt fgs.
So they then had to spend nearly four times the ammount of money on salt....supply and demand.
I am sick and tired of excuse after excuse from councils or Governments. The money IS there, every month millions and millions of pounds is racked in in car tax duty. Money that was always intended for the roads. Then on top of that we have fuel duty as well. The money raised by the motorist runs into billions of pounds every year, and your telling us that do not have any money sitting around? Seems like they had a few billion for their mates who run the banks eh?
I have been driving for over 30 years and have seen bad weather like this, in fact much worse than this yet have never ever known the roads so bad. Some may say it is becasue there are too many cars on the road now, I would answer and say well even more money then in the coffers.
A lot of the money that councils used to spend on roads, is now being forced on them by either national Government or new European legislation, on other things that they deem more important than our roads.
Like having to pay millions of pounds extra dealing with more people using our local services!!
Sorry you can make excuses all day long....where does all the road tax go...how much do they raise per year and why are they now bleating on about freak weather, it ain't the trains ya know!
People wonder why others who live abroad laugh at the way we deal with things, or not in this case. Can you imagine living in a country that gets a lot of bad weather and then seeing how we have struggled over the last month or so, with a bit of snow ffs?
Going out on a motorcycle this year wioll be taking ones life in their hands, because if you hit a pot hole on a bike you are off, and injury if not death itself will await.
£ 218 for nowt is the way I see it!!
Isn't it going to worse in UK PLC next year?
As I hear it from France, local authorities - who have a responsibility to maintain roads other than the trunk routes, have been told to cap their Council Tax rises this year to assist Labour in the subterfuge in the election that Labour are doing more for the electorate...
I think I would blame the Borough Engineer, probably for implementing a feeble maintenance programme. Someone who is no doubt 'educated' up to the eyeballs with every qualification in the world; but who probably hasn't even built a sandcastle.
And the manufacturers of the piss poor quality materials.
the Romans didn't have these problems with their roads. Why can't we put a decent road down anymore?
I mean for god's sake. we survived bomb craters in the blitz, what's a few piss hole potholes?
I don't understand why some councils put a join of tar around repairs and others don't.
I lived near the boundary between 2 counties. One did the tar-dribble thing and the other didn't. The differenece in how long the repairs lasted before they started to break up at the edges was huge.
There must be plenty of experience/knowledge in the road-fixing world that makes it clear that the cost of tar and time is far outweighed by the impovement in the quality of the repair.
God its like a game of tennis reading you lot and the jibes lol
i think local councils and national quangos will be given hobsons choice. education and medical care or pothole repair.
a larger percentage of your council/road fund/fuel/income tax is going to the banks than did before, so there will be less to spend on the roads, hospitals, schools, welfare benefits, education, social services and meals on wheels.
i'm off to cervinia in the morning so i will check out what the roads are like at 2000 metres and report back to you all. wish i could get a grant for this survey because it will be important for the community.
just might check out the skiing while i'm there.
Potholes are n't as bad here as our Russian comrades have to deal with, and they just seem to get on with it.
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