One of our regular readers speculated whether this picture on pothole news.co.uk was in an oblique way an apt comment on the Highland Council's staffing and budget issues? The only guy in the picture working is labelled 'bloke from Poland' but perhaps if it were religiously applied to Highland Council he could be called 'bloke about to be paid off'?
Pothole News is a very interesting site and worth book-marking for the future as many of Nairn's roads are already showing the signs of this winter's damage and the repairs from last year are also starting to fray at the edges.
"Potholesnews.co.uk is an independent website designed to help you, the motorist, assist your regional council, improve the state of your local roads and claim compensation if your vehicle has been damaged by potholes.
Pothole News is a very interesting site and worth book-marking for the future as many of Nairn's roads are already showing the signs of this winter's damage and the repairs from last year are also starting to fray at the edges.
"Potholesnews.co.uk is an independent website designed to help you, the motorist, assist your regional council, improve the state of your local roads and claim compensation if your vehicle has been damaged by potholes.
The UK motorist pours billions of pounds into the public purse through taxes, yet experts reckon there is an amazing £1 billion shortfall in funding for repairs. As a result, there is often a ‘patch and mend’ mentality when it comes to highway maintenance.
We just don’t think that is good enough and people are suffering from extra repair bills and sometimes even personal injury, simply because roads are not kept up to scratch."
There are some articles on the site dealing with Scottish pothole news, here's a piece from one of them: "South Ayrshire council have come to the realisation that they could be required to invest £90 million over the next few years to improve their road network to the point where it is up to the standards demanded by UK motorists."One wonders what the Highland Council will need to keep its road network up to standard? Surely this will need central government intervention or our road network will simply fall to pieces and become unusable for ordinary cars? Where will the money come from however?
6 comments:
I have just driven on the A96 from Nairn to Aberdeen and back. The road is an absolute nightmare with missing road surfaces throughout and potholes everywhere. To fix the road would cost millions and take many many months - it will get a lot worse now the thaw is on and the heavy lorries will churn it up even more. The poor motorists road tax must be used for roads etc. and not squandered elsewhere...this is the worst road surface I have ever seen and will cause many accidents and damge to cars.
It's getting dangerous for pedestrians waiting at the lights, someone is going to get hit by the small stones coming from this pothole.
When you are walking into Nairn and on to the left hand side off the bridge you will see a large hole in the road i walk pass there every day and it is getting worse and also the brick work on the pavement on both sides off the bridge there seems to be large cracks on the bricks the pavement now is starting to get a bit off a belly as well ie lowering in to the ground it will be interesting to see how long before they repair the bridge Lord Ealan
check out the irish pothole song on you tube. think we should have one for nairn any ideas.
I don't intend to be alarmist, but Highland Council covers a third of Scotland and the entire area is larger than Wales and Belgium. That's a lot of road miles and a lot of road tar. Many of the highland roads need to be totally resurfaced instead of just patching work by a worker with a shovelful of the black stuff.
I can't see it happening. The money simply isn't there. It's all being spent in the central belt on trams, motorways and a replacement Forth road bridge.
I don't think you are being alarmist at all Duncan.
Perhaps very soon the market for vehicles with good off-road suspension etc will increase as the roads deteriorate.
Against that background too can anyone realistically see any progress on a Nairn by-pass apart from civil servants tinkering with lines on the map perhaps?
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