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:

The idiocy of local government

And most of us have to put up with it.

These are obviously my views and you will have to use your judgement to decide whether you agree with  my logic.

First premise: that when a hole has to be dug in a cobbled street in can be repaired in a way that will be entirely satisfactory to nearly everyone.

How effective the repair is, depends on the standard of workmanship and not the problem itself.

This has been shown to be true if you examine a repair that Balfour Beatty did, some time back that is opposite and on the other side of the road to the Westmorland Gazette Office. This was done well because they were being inspected - by me! I was in touch with their boss at Penrith who I have got to know through a previous campaign to get contractors to do quality work.

On the other hand if a hole needs to be dug in an asphalted street the problem is more difficult because of the need to seal the new asphalt with the old - something that is neglected in filling most of the potholes that occur.

Nearly all the problems we have with the cobbles in town is because the local Highways office in the past, was administered by Nick Raymond who didn't require Capita to inspect work do on the street.

This is true because United Utilities had received no complaints from anyone when I contacted them with the help of one of their employees. The result from this contact was for them to apologise for the poor workmanship done by their contractor Balfour Beatty and even though it was over two years after they had done the work ( when they can be legally requested to return), to come back and repair the damage except in the area between New Market Street and Brogden Street where the Highways department undertook to do the work - one can assume with payment to CCC for this by United Utilities.

So we end up with a series of problems in a lot of places down Market street which have arisen because of the negligence of our Highways Department.

If they had done their work of supervision properly then there would be no need for them to now repair the cobbles at a cost to us of £100,000 at a time when money is scarce.

In my next instalment I point out that they are going to rip up ALL the cobbles between and including the junctions of New Market Street and Brogden Dt with Market St where we have the best stretch of cobbles in place in the whole street. Furthermore they don't plan to  even tackle some of the worse areas in the whole street that are below Brogden Street ie at the junction of Union Street and Market Street.

So we get all the disruption of closing off the street, spend £100,000 doing work that some of it doesn't need doing and leave behind a half finished job requiring more cash, more waits and a similar amount of disruption all over again with the accompanying loss of revenue to our shops and businesses.

If you wish to see my evidence then watch the video I have placed on Youtube, featured on a previous posting.