The Market Street Cobbles Fiasco - Steam is rising and beginning to escape from my ears

The contractors leave with the job only half done only to come back next year to inflict more disruption. This and the cost to the tax payer for  a questionable solution, need never have happened. Furthermore there are projects that the town really needs are under real threat - the face to face Citizens Advice Bureau comes top of my list.

I suspect the bill to the taxplayer is approaching half a million pounds and the disruption to trade enormous. Not a penny of this money need have been spent and  the repair of the small level of damage to the cobbles  could have been done unobtrusively.

The Amey contractors have admitted here on film that the work they were doing didn't need doing; the cobbles they were digging up were perfectly sound.

This is the result of incompetent councillors starting with Wendy Kolby who was the Labour Party County Councillor for over twenty years. She did not supervise the arrogant Nick Raymond who was the Cumbria County Department of chief for this area until recently when he was at last moved sideways. Politicians conveniently forget that they are in fact the employers of our civil servants.

The Cobbles down Market Street would never have needed repair if it had not been for the fact that contractors accessing the services under the road were allowed to repair the cobbles without supervision by the Highways Department resulting in subsidence due to poor workmanship.

This was glaringly true when United Utilities replaced a water main all the way down Market Street in 2006 leaving appauling damage to the road surface in some fifteen places.

When tackled at the top of the company United Utilites admitted that they were at fault paying me £25 for raising the matter and agreed to return and repair the poor work. This still left all the other damage caused by unsupervised contractors acting on behalf of gas, electricity and previous water and drains access. Work allowed to be badly done by Nick Raymond's department.

Work subsequently done by United Utilites opposite the West. Gaz. office was of an excellent standard demonstrating that effective repairs could be carried out when done by a responsible contractor.

Instead of small scale repairs being done, the Highways Department were allowed to start a complete resurfacing of Market Street and the resulting chaos has resulted.

Now we should expect James Airey and Peter Hornby, our County Councillors, to sort this mess out. Again their poor supervision of what the Highways Department do is to blame.

It is time that politicians take responsibility for their workforce - the council often with top salaries over £150,000/year -  rather than posturing in front of the public and doing very little.

Why do we the public continue to elect them?

Letter to Cumbria County chief officers

Who earn in the region of £100,000 per year.

Sent off this morning to chief executive jill.stannard@cumbriacc.gov.uk, Corporate Director of Environment  marie.fallon@cumbriacc.gov.uk  see the Cumbria County web site  ccccopy to James Airey :

Do you think your contractors respect you?

Neither do we in Ulverston.

Your Highways Department have authorised Amey to work on the setts ( cobbles) down market street.

Today they will continue to do work they see as totally unnecessary : ripping up perfectly good cobbles and relaying them again. At the same time they will not be relaying cobbles further down the street that they agree need doing much more.

They think the County Council are crazy and say so on video.

In view of this poor management by the Cumbria County Council, where your contractors are ridiculing your decisions, do you not think your salaries are over inflated?

We await your reply with interest.

Dr Geoff Dellow

Here is a press release that has just been put out:

Highways Contractors today agreed that what they were being asked to do was crazy - something they have come to expect from Cumbria County Council.

Here on video Amey contractors agree that in the course of doing work to cost the tax payer £150,000. they are being told to rip up a perfectly good cobbled highway, and then relay it when further down the street cobbles that do need relaying will be left.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh4l55AQs7A

This situation was foreseen and warned against in a video made six weeks ago which resulted in an interview with James Airey the County Councillor for the area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njFDTNhhr58

Sadly however it seems that James Airey has been unable to change their minds. This is a legacy of the former Head of Highways for this area Nick Raymond who has been moved sideways and a new person appointed

Ulverstonians and shopkeepers are furious that not only is the money being badly spent but that the work has disrupted the commercial functioning of the town in particular items popular market for six weeks already .

Yet in another six weeks of disruption unnecessary work is being done AND the job will only be half finished so that to get all the cobbles in good condition the town will be subjected to disruption yet again in the future.

What is particularly galling is that had the County Highways Dept being doing their job of monitoring the quality of work done in the past by contractors when the replaced the cobbles, then this expensive work wouldn't be necessary at all.

The issue is also being discussed on the Ulverston blog at http://geoffdellow.blogspot.com/2011/03/in-inane-county-council.html

In Inane County Council

At this very minute Amey on the instructions of the County Council are digging up perfectly good cobbles only to stop work at the bank corner at Union Street and leave the mess of uneven cobbles below.

The Amey contractor agrees that the County Council are Crazy.

This video has already attracted 120 viewings in a few days - something I've never witness before which shows there's a lot of interest.

So why has the press written nothing yet?

Is this why we need this blog?



Meanwhile we foot the bill and put up with the inconvenience and the killing off of trade on our High Street.

Here's the video I made six weeks ago:

"I enjoyed that - it was quite a challenge"

Was the remark I heard at the top of Hoad - in amongst talk where conquering Everest had been mentioned.

Was




The paths had been very slippery in places with the rain on top of compressed icy snow.

It's the time when we overcome obstacles, particularly through our own abilities that give us a buzz.

Being reliant on sophisticated complex services is the downer.

We've unfortunately come to believe that humans can solve every problem.

It ain't so.

The Christmas travelling public became angry to find that the Eurostar trains couldn't cope with the snow and cars on the Basingstoke ring roads couldn't cope with gridlock caused by undrivable conditions.

Perhaps we need to start resetting our expectations of everything working smoothly at every turn.

The Floods here in Ulverston and Cumbria made us rethink whether we could rely on public services.

But we can expect this sort of thing to happen more and more in the future.

Global warming, I believe has upset the natural sequence of the weather and there will be an increasing number of situations where we will find ourselves to be helpless.

The result of the Copenhagen summit left me very depressed. There is no chance of the human race surviving at this rate of progress.

So what can we look forward to?

Lots and lots of opportunities of working together to becoming self reliant.

Whilst we can't rely on the weather, we can develop friendships that endure.

We can also become more self sufficient and less dependent on others.

Take keeping warm for instance.

Anyone with a fireplace that can support a coal fire or better still peat could preserve it even if it's not used now. With a stash of fuel - you can bury a few tons of coal- that won't deteriorate - so that you can be warm for a while even when the national grid brakes down. It's good to feel that one doesn't have to rely on other anonymous services.

A change at the top of South Lakeland Highways

Debbie Binch, the Community Officer for Cumbria County Council has just confirmed that Nick Raymond, the local area Highways Boss, has been seconded to help with work at Dalston, Near Carlisle.

The Head of Highways from the Eden area has taken over Nick Raymond's responsibilities in order to the facilitate this move.

I know of a certain taxi driver and a few thousand others will regard this as good news - for the people of Dalston of course.

I understand that James Airey, our local county councillor, approves of the decision and was certainly not adverse to this new career opportunity for Nick Raymond.

Of course I'm glad to point out that you probably heard it here first!

Nick Raymond and Capita Symonds

(Nick Raymond is Head of Highways for the South Lakeland Region)

I'm coming to get you!

Having heard more firsthand accounts of the arrogant behaviour of you guys, I am redoubling my efforts to get elected so that I can challenge you to do your jobs properly.

I shall be in your offices in early July after the election to ask you to give explanations for your behaviour.

Now is the time to start improving your performance if you want to earn some brownie points with me.

It's time that local government was more accountable to the electorate.

Local Government - some examples of not working

As I begin to dig into local politics I'm finding a pattern.

The politicians don't put up a fight and just mouth off 'concerns' which get published in the Mail and the 'civil servants' are barely civil and are certainly not servants.

There appears to be a culture of arrogance amongst 'officers' that they can't be touched and they can do (or not do) as they please.

Their bosses, the Councillors, are totally ineffective for the most part.

One example of an arrogant officer is Nick Raymond, local head of Highways 'Services'.

Everywhere I come across people who deal with him there is that look of despair.

Yesterday I was talking to Mr Turner, Head of Parking Enforcement for the SLDC.

His officer in Ulverston, Dick Base, is not issuing tickets in many parts of Ulverston because the double yellow lines are so badly worn.

This issue has been discussed by Town Councillors, led by Judith Pickthall, at a meeting with Dick Base and they are approaching Nick Raymond. What is likely to happen?

Nothing, I'm pretty sure. The councillors haven't the stomach for a real fight.

Nick will plead that he hasn't any cash to spend - especially with the high costs of the road gritting - yet I discover his department, which oversees Capita, are guilty of allowing gross wastage of funds in the way that road markings are carried out.

The road markings that are done - by a firm that travels all the way down from Brampton to do our work - spread the lines so thinly that you can see the asphalt underneath!

They just scrape the surface with their marking 'paint' like spreading butter in war time.

If the lines were painted three times as thick - 5mm (quarter of an inch) then they would last three times as long and wouldn't need doing so often.

Now who is going to sort this scandal out?

It's the job of Wendy Kolbe and Pauline Halfpenny - what will they do now?

I'm notifying them both of the above!

20 mpm speed limit

Sergeant Rupert Johnston tells me by email that these can be obtained when residents apply to the County Council.

However the suspicion is that life in reality is not that simple!

Why has Bardsea got 20 mph while North Lonsdale in South Ulverston has not, though the residents desperately want it.

Is this the influence of the well heeled?

I hope to find out soon by prising an answer out of Nick Raymond, the County Council Engineer at Kendal who at present refuses to answering my emails.