Sheffield is having all its roads rebuilt. No sooner have Amey (the contractors) redone the road outside my house, taken away all the fencing and wiped their feet, then Yorkshire Water comes along and slices three grit big holes in the road. Grrr.
Oh well, at least it means I now have a nice layer-cake view of the road structure.
jgh
The utilities are supposed to give the Highways Authority three months' notice of any planned work that involves opening the road, to avoid this sort of situation. It should only happen if the Yorkshire Water work was an emergency.
Colin Bignell
On Friday 15 November 2013 00:48 snipped-for-privacy@mdfs.net wrote in uk.d-i-y:
I thought "they" had systems to minimise that short of silliness?
Southend-on-Sea spent an obscene amount of money pedestrianising the high street using a variety of surfaces arranged in pretty patterns. Very shortly afterwards there was a 20 foot deep trench running the whole length to replace the main water/sewage facilities. This was not a last minute emergency.
As soon as the surface was restored it was dug up gain on behalf of the National Grid.
Was this a lack of communication or just incompetence by local councillors?
Very unlikely to have anything to do with the Councillors. Incompetent Council staff - perhaps.
Councillors are elected and don't make every day decisions like that. It the Council employees who are responsible. Utility companies have to give three months or more notice before digging up the road. However they are allowed to do so without giving notice in an emergency.
Incompetence in the Highways Department of the Council, who will be Council employees, not Councillors, by the sound of it. The fact that the two utilities came one after the other suggests that they had followed the correct procedures and had been given suitable dates to work to. However, the laying of the pedestrianised area should have been delayed until after the excavations had settled and had the final reinstatement.
Colin Bignell
When spending >£1million on the activity I would expect my elected representatives to take a slight interest and ask a few basic questions.
The original pedestrianisation was not a minor roadworks nor was the subsequent destruction(s) of the work. All three activities must have been in planning stages for years.
Warwickshire CC have told me that when they finally resurface our road, they will put a three year freeze on anyone digging it up except fro emergencies. this has focussed the minds of the utility companies wonderfully.
Jonathan
It should have been axiomatic that I was referring to the digging up of the road that would be dealt with by council employees. In any case note that I referred to the likelihood that it was an emergency repair.
In 1985, the roads around me were done. A few months afterwards, just about every joint in the gas main failed, apparently triggered by the vibration from the road scraper. The whole road was trenched lengthwise for a new gas main, plus a new feeder to each house across the road every ~7 metres or so. All backfilled, tarmaced over, and continuously sinking, resulting in a road with a speed dent every 7 metres and the tarmac always failing.
About 3 years ago, they had to do it all again because it was beyond the continuous patching up. Road scraper takes the top off, and we get a few hours power cut because it took the insulation off a buried street lamp cable. Anyway, new layers applied and it all looks very nice for about a day. This time, the water main burst in
3 places afterwards, but at least that was only 3 holes (and loads of mud), not a laticework of trenches all over the road.Oh yes, they did a road near me, and after a few weeks several of utilities said the road builders had caused leaks or other damage and had to dig it up. Would you not think that advisors for the utilities under a road being re laid would check the installation before they started to lay a new road to attempt to repair this sort of issue before it became serious?
Brian
Local high street (Harborne in Brum) has a block paved pavement with a dirty great scar or tarmac down the middle for about 60m where clearly a pipe has been laid.
Why could they not have replaced the blocks ? As it is, if you want to wheel a manual wheel chair along - you can't. The tarmac is too bumpy and rough.
That's the trouble with cast iron pipes - they can suddenly crack. They might be fine before the road works start, but when the heavy machinery used to lay new surfaces comes along, cracks can develop.
Ha.
Stirling Council painted new residents' parking lines on my former road, then a few months later Stirling Council resurfaced the entire road. Then they repainted the lines and then 'the gas' came along and dug oles.
Yesterday I observed two men going round a Council building seeing if the fan assisted convector radiators needed vacuuming out. One to carry the George and one to carry the key to open the heaters.
Owain
That suggests it is a first reinstatement. The final reinstatement follows a few months later, when everything has settled and it has to provide a good surface. However, the utilities are not usually required to reinstate decorative paving.
Colin Bignell
alan scribbled...
Instead of going off on one here, why not ask the council for an explanation?
There's also the possibility that the first set of works disturbed the surrounding ground enough to make the second set of works an emergency that needed responding to.
The first disturbance, I'd be willing to allocate to the "c*ck-up" file, knowing how most councils seem to work.
That'll be the way that most of the time, the utility companies are only allowed to make good on a temporary basis, which should then be made good permanently as soon as enough time has passed for things to settle down. Complain to the council.
The OP probably knows the local councillors:-)
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