You're blaming the wrong people. Council spending power has dropped 27% since 2010 and the recent high inflation has taken its toll with increased costs.
I don't see this talked about but the weight of cars is going up all the time, which must be having an impact
I just had a conv with a cat who's involved in council audits. You may find it [illuminating](https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1bie7dc/roads_at_breaking_point_as_pothole_repairs_hit/kvkekqf/).
I can think of three examples off the top of my head:
1) Using an old IKEA building for a 'cultural centre' nobody wants or asked for, and keeping their spend on it confidential. Yes, they are keeping it a secret, how much of our money is going into it.
2) buying a waste removal firm and paying a fortune to continue waste removal services instead of addressing the strike action taken by workers.
3) buying a poorly performing hotel during a pandemic, and making a big loss on it.
I'm sure I can think of more once I've had my coffee. Oh and a bonus one, paying millions in equal pay claims which are bullshit, because the jobs aren't comparable, and therefore can legitimately have different terms.
All councils have to publish annual budgets and are subject to FoI requests, so the claim about that project being confidential doesn't wash. It also sounds like it's capital funding which has very little to do with roads and is often ringfenced money that has conditions attached to it. If the council doesn't spend it, they lose it for the following year. You can blame central government for that.
Servicing and maintenance is more expensive in-house. Outsourcing it to contractors saves councils millions each year (I should know, it's literally my job to manage several of these contracts).
Fair enough on the third one, but I suspect that falls into the capital funding bracket or is a prime example please of councils being so starved of revenue that they are forced to take on more and more risky ventures.
The equal pay thing doesn't just apply to councils.. many major firms have been stung by it (Tesco and Asda spring to mind). I'm not sure how it is in England but there are directives set by the Scottish Government which outline how public sector workers should be paid. Councils up here technically set their own labour costs, but they have to tie in with the rules which govern national public sector workers.
The lack of understanding of how councils are funded and operated is a major issue amongst the general population. Needs to be taught better in schools and more people should really be checking annual budgets and independent audits which are all easily accessed online. Instead they just moan about brown envelopes and how councils sit about doing nothing while using £10 notes to spark up a fag. Couldn't be further from the truth. Every single penny is watched.
I do t believe it’s cheaper to outsource, as I know exactly what happens when a council contract goes to tender. Everyone in the game triples their price.
As I said previously, I literally carry out tender evaluations as part of my role.
I can assure you that the prices on our service contracts are a good percentage lower than the market rate.
We even have built-in repair costs which again are lower than the market rate. The reason companies do this is because they still make money, have a steady income stream, have a visible presence in the area, and it generates other business for them.
A quick example for you, we pay £10 per circuit on EICRs which is a lot lower than the market rate.. on average it's about double that price in the private sector.
Has it, my council tax went from £2200 in 2020, now its over £3000.
I am sure the tarmac on motorways sees a lot more heavier vehicles per day than other roads... I dont see any patches on them....however when I see poor repairs on local roads all the time, sometimes last until the next load of rain.
Motorways and national highways recieve 31x the maintenance budget per year.
Yes, actually an order of magnitude the budget per mile. For every £1,000 available to spend on the road outside your house, the equivalent length of motorway gets £31,000.
https://www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/UK-falls-down-OECD-table-as-local-roads-spending-halves/12439
Council tax doesn't pay for roads, they receive an annual grant from central government to spend on road maintenance. Would you prefer councils to fill potholes instead of caring for the elderly? Now, I'm not saying councils aren't shit with our money, some more so than others, but this one is on the tories 100%
When was the last time you heard of decent care homes or elderly having to sell their home to pay for the care home etc.
They ain't doing either.
Several million for more ULEZ though 👍
Often the reason for this is that local roads are full of sewers, water mains, gas lines, telecoms, and electricity each with their own connections into each house. Add in roads drainage and street lighting and there is plenty to go wrong under the road. This means local roads are dug up frequently by various statutory undertakers. Leading to differences in subgrade compaction which can cause differential settlement and areas for water to sit. The joints in surfacing are also common points of failure for defects to form as can allow water ingress.
I think a pot hole on a motorway can be lethal.
I see lots of residents locally complaining about pot holes on 20 roads and really don't get it. They're struggling to fund adult social care. In that context, who cares about pot holes on a road where you can just slow down a couple mph and not even feel it or drive around it entirely
Fair enough on a dark NSL country road where it's going to wreck your suspension but those seem to get fixed pretty quickly when reported
Trucks and vans are heavy though and with more of those on the roads than ever before I can’t believe it’s only heavier cars (code for EVs and hybrids) to blame.
your giving a non excuse for councils failing in a statutory duty. and for failing to ensure that repairs to roads are actually conducted to a high enough standard that they will last this is there own "contractors" and also when utilities dig up the road
we have, on a main road, a recurring deep pothole every 2-4 weeks and the company paid to "fix it" just slaps some wet set down and runs knowing they will be back to fix it next week.
thats on a Major A road in the area
the minor roads are getting to the point many of them are only passable by 4x4 due to the size and depth of the holes, and perpetual flooding.
Roads have been shot for the last 20-30 years, this isn’t since electric vehicles- a lot heavier and more suvs on the road. Councils are to blame. By any chance do you know what the councils do with the millions they get from parking tickets ??
If you only have a limited amount of money to spend, don’t you think it would be a good idea to spend it on the necessities, like roads and rubbish collection, tbh that’s the only reason I pay my council tax, it’s not my fault they then spend it on everything other than roads and rubbish collection.
No, they’re not. Infrastructure is a necessity, and most schools are academies now, who are funded directly by central government. People seem to forget as funding for local governments have gone down, central government has actually increased its burden.
Can't say I'm familiar with English councils and their role in education but that's very much not how it works north of the border.
Spending in English schools has barely increased since 2009-10 think I read it was a 2% per pupil rise. Now factor in inflation and you'll see it's a massive cut in spending.
Tbf Scottish schools have a much higher spend per pupil but it means it takes a massive chunk out of the council budget.
Edit: my mistake, spending per head has gone down since 2010 in England.
https://ifs.org.uk/news/growing-gap-school-spending-pupil-between-scotland-and-rest-uk#:~:text=We%20look%20at%20gaps%20in%20school%20spending%20between%20nations%20in%20the%20UK.&text=In%20the%20most%20recent%20year,around%20%C2%A37%2C200%20per%20pupil.
Second edit: had a wee look into your claim that most English schools aren't funded or managed by local authorities. That's simply untrue.. of the 24000 odd English schools, only 2300 odd are academies. That's less than 10%
https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/how-many-schools-in-the-uk
https://www.tes.com/magazine/leadership/strategy/academisation-how-schools-become-academies-and-join-MATs
Not to mention that most academies I have heard of are selective.
The minute you allow selective entry conditions costs go way down. The disruptive student with learning difficulties, homecare issues, etc who needs much more staff support likely won't pass entry exams (already struggling)...
Also parental involvement can make a huge difference, both to passing entry exams and attainment; (And according to a family member who is a retired teacher, telling if the parents are supportive is generally easy) (look into cambridge/oxford state schools - they manage insane stuff because parent X can arrange for demos etc from the uni/uni adjacent research labs they work at, that no school can afford/is equipped to do)
So central gov funds have then been reallocated from councils to academies, while also focusing the most expensive students on the council schools...
Fair dos, not enough that it's a majority I suspect. Will have to look into it more. Simple fact is the majority of councils across the UK are responsible for delivering education and it eats up a huge chunk of their budget.
That anyone is arguing that education and social care are not necessitites is kinda worrying. The nation is dumb enough already and the welfare state is creaking at the knees.. why anyone would be advocating for more of that over fixing a pothole is beyond me.
Edit: my quick maths tells me that 6600 schools are outwith council control. So less than a third are academy schools.
https://www.local.gov.uk/topics/children-and-young-people/academies-and-la-maintained-schools-inspection-analysis
Social care literally is a necessity, as there are statutory obligations on councils to provide it. It's typically about sixty - seventy per cent of a council's spend. Meanwhile, most councils have seen their real terms funding drop by over fifty per cent since 2010.
For someone who seems pissed off enough to post online, you seem to have done no research into how these things actually work.
Local councils have 3 income streams: council tax, business rates (from dying high streets) and funding from central government.
When the Tories came in they started cutting funding to local councils. 40% real term cuts since 2010. Meaning they obviously have to raise council tax for residents **and** spend less on public services (like fixing the roads), just to try and balance the books.
Honestly, if you want someone to blame, blame the government. They’re the ones increasing your taxes but not passing the value down to you through improved public services.
It's simply smart politics by Cameron. Slash local council funding, things like roads won't actually suffer for quite a few years as it takes time for issues relating to a lack of maintenance to surface. Once it does happen you can just point to local government as the problem.
It relies on the general population being generally uneducated, as well as uninformed about how UK state systems function, so it of course worked like an absolute charm and you get threads like this.
Never ceases to amaze me the amount of people who feel strongly enough about an issue to post / rant / complain online - but don’t feel strongly enough about it to actually google it and try to understand it.
I rarely use FB any more but on the odd occasion that I do there is guaranteed to be a post blaming the council for something. Often it's an issue where local government has no remit too 😂
I'd also add that council tax is for revenue purposes only.
All project works comes from capital funding from central government. Councl tax makes up a minority prevent of civil funding too, so even less revenue money to go around once you take into the cost of inflation for construction materials since 2020.
Council spending power is at an all time low. Not sure how it works south of the border but in Scotland approx 50% of all council budgets are reserved solely for education and social care, again forever reducing council spending power and flexibility.
I thought it was partnof our council tax that goes towards repairing the roads.....central government pays for the motorways, which I have to say, are pretty clear of holes...
Whilst Central Government is only directly responsible for the Strategic Road Network, local Highway Authorities are still dependent on central government funding.
Inflation in construction in recent years has been running at about 20%. Local authority tax increases are capped at 5%, of which 40% is ringfenced for Adult Social Care.
The block grant given by treasury to local authorities does not cover the gap.
So yes, this goes back to central government.
There are certain services that councils are legally obliged to provide, such as social care. That means other services are cut as budgets get squeezed.
Councils are obliged to maintain local streets so that they are safe to use (including gritting) but pot holes don't generally cause injury, so you can see why they aren't prioritised.
Oh ok, if it doesnt hurt someone we will leave it....just let to poor saps spend the money they havent got on repairing their cars....I am on tyre 4 this year, luckily no wheel damage....drove past 5 cars parked on the side of the road the other month, all went in the same hole.
Welcome to 2024
>Oh ok, if it doesnt hurt someone we will leave it
Yes, if the choice is between funding essential services like social care or saving people's suspension systems a bit of wear and a tear, the council obviously have no choice but to choose the former.
Roads seem garbage in towns (round here anyway) currently. I reported one over 3 months ago which is a drain that's sunk about 6" on a corner so you need to stop if there's cars coming or you will take damage.
When on my bike (pedal) you can see the extent - and have to dodge it.
We have one area near a hospital that you can't do more than 20Mph on in a normal hatchback.
Funding is from central government and has been cut by half since 2010. I wonder what happened in 2010…
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-spends-least-out-of-13-nations-on-repairing-roads-blighted-by-potholes-12938409
All roads are purpose built and engineered. Motorways receive [31x](https://www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/UK-falls-down-OECD-table-as-local-roads-spending-halves/12439) more funding than roads owned by local councils.
No, they aren’t. The vast majority of local authority roads are what’s termed “evolved” roads, i.e. they have evolved over time from being old dirt tracks, to Roman roads, to Telford roads, and then some iteration of “modern” construction. This means they are not purpose built, and the cost of rebuilding them to modern standards would be prohibitively expensive.
They have to be pretty clear of potholes. If someone whacks a pothole going 70 they'll probably die and take a few others out with them.
That'll certainly make the government look a bit bad.
All councils rely on funding from central government. Your council tax doesn't cover all of their outgoings, it never has. Central government has cut funding to councils hence why you're seeing so many go bankrupt. It's less a case of money mismanagement it's more just not recieving enough money in the first place.
>All councils rely on funding from central government.
And? They still decide where the funding goes.
And lets not pretend councils are efficient.
>Central government has cut funding to councils
Incorrect for the last 3-4 years. Been a year on year increase in local government funding since 2020.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/local-government-funding-england
>hence why you're seeing so many go bankrupt.
No, we are seeing so many go bankrupt because they waste huge amounts of their budgets on things that dont matter.
>It's less a case of money mismanagement it's more just not recieving enough money in the first place.
Wrong.
I'm not being funny mate. Did you read what you linked?
>How has local government funding changed since 2010?
>Local authority ‘spending power’ – the amount of money authorities have to spend from government grants, council tax and business rates – fell by 17.5% between 2009/10 and 2019/20, before partially recovering. However, in 2021/22 it was still 10.2% below 2009/10 levels.
>The fall in spending power is largely because of reductions in central government grants. These grants were cut by 40% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2019/20, from £46.5bn to £28.0bn (2023/24 prices). This downward trend was reversed in 2020/21 and 2021/22 as central government made more grant funding available to local government in response to the pressures of the pandemic. Though even including Covid grants, the fall in grant income was still 21% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2021/22; without, the fall was 31%.
So everything I said is true and your rebuttal is incorrect, as proved by the link you so kindly provided. Thanks for making it easy for me
Yeah, but ALL local councils are failing to keep the roads in a good state of repair - roads are often just as bad in Tory controlled council areas.
This is mostly because the central funding from government (which is where the majority of council funding comes from) has been cut deliberately and repeatedly since 2010.
Council tax and road tax are only a part of the picture and without that central funding, all councils simply don't have the money to do everything they used to do.
>This is mostly because the central funding from government (which is where the majority of council funding comes from) has been cut deliberately and repeatedly since 2010.
Wrong
Funding has been increasing year on year since 2016, with significant increases over the last 3-4 years: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/local-government-funding-england
>The fall in spending power is largely because of reductions in central government grants. These grants were cut by 40% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2019/20, from £46.5bn to £28.0bn (2023/24 prices). This downward trend was reversed in 2020/21 and 2021/22 as central government made more grant funding available to local government in response to the pressures of the pandemic.
It's literally written on the site you linked
> The cost of that is skyrocketing, and central government simply isn't providing the necessary funding to bridge the gap.
If anything, they're making it worse because of the £86,000 care limit. The government hasn't explained how that won't just leave yet another massive hole in council budgets. They've promised some kind of funding, but it hasn't materialised yet.
This! There's a junction near me without a give way sign that is now an unprioritised crossroads as the paint is essentially all gone. However, some locals give way and others less familiar with the area don't. Dangerous.
Blaim central government.
IIRC it used to be that most funding came from central government grants, not council tax. AFAIK now the opposite is true because central grants have been slashed.
Also central government for a very long time has been using council tax freezes as a vote buying tool. The problem is even if grants are supplied to cover the increase that would be expected under inflation, at some point these stop, at which point the council now has to increase tax in line with years of inflation, not just the last year...
Remember, basically EVERY council in the UK is in dire straits. Occams Razor says if it is a choice between every council having bad management or the single point of central government screwing it up, then central government is to blaim...
Take RAAC issues in public buildings - there is a strong argument that the material choice was correct; The problem is that the people designing/certifying it did specify a design life at the time; for the buildings in question a RAAC ceiling replaced every 30 years quite possibly is/was the cheapest option. The problem is noone put aside the investment to replace them 5-10 years ago when they were approaching EOL at 30 years old... Central gov blaims councils etc, while failing to mention that the councils aren't necessarily allowed under funding rules to put aside a section of school maintenance budgets on the basis that they will need to spend 5-10 years budget on a roof every 30 years...
I just added more context, don't take it so personally.
[https://www.ponko.co.uk/blog/what-is-road-tax-used-for](https://www.ponko.co.uk/blog/what-is-road-tax-used-for)
[https://www.osv.ltd.uk/where-does-vehicle-tax-go/#what-does](https://www.osv.ltd.uk/where-does-vehicle-tax-go/#what-does)
"Once upon a time, road tax did pay for our roads. But, the motorcar boom of 1896-1936 happened and the money the government received in vehicle tax simply wasn’t enough to cover our sudden need for more roads and roads of better quality. So the authorities, both local and general, stepped in and started paying for it. And since then, our roads are funded by the government and not directly by what we pay in road tax."
Yes, more selfishness and fewer social safety nets will surely fix everything that's going wrong in this country, just as it has been since 2010 when everything started markedly improving.
🙄
Yeah, why would we copy the model of countries like Denmark, with some of the happiest citizens in the world with good social safety nets and public infrastructure, when we could instead copy our friends over the pond with their selfish, neo-liberal model. Why should I pay for someone else's healthcare etc?
Also I'll soon need a gun when crime increases as a result of neglecting the undesirables!
Well the recent figure(2020) was 1.3 million who don't pay council tax. I bet this is now in 2-3 millions.
Why do other tax payers have to sponsor free loaders?
This data does not include people who are not supposed to pay council tax.
It is the data for who has to pay council but yet don't pay or register themselves as exempt.
If you're making a claim, the burden of proof is on *you* to provide it. If you want to actually change anyone's mind or just win the argument, provide the evidence to show us you're right.
The principle is the same. If you're not willing to back up something you're saying with facts, it's just another bullshit opinion on the Internet until proven otherwise.
If you want us to think you don't actually have the facts to support what you're saying, congratulations, you've succeeded.
Ya this isn't the councils fault it's THE TORIES FAULT!!!
Councils can spend money on lamb bananas and housing dingy boat immigrants, escaping the war in France for a safer place in the UK and this is money way better spent than on pot holes!!! And they probably get some kind of kick backs from awarding local contracts, which they need because they're very underpaid! All because of THE EVIL TORIES!!!
I mean the Tories absolutely are evil and have ruined this country beyond belief, everything wrong with today's country can in someway be linked to the awful handling on the tories.
Liebour won't be much better so really all I can vote for is Lib Dems, and they betrayed us (you were supposed to destroy the enemy not join them!).... It's a bleak future.
Yes potholes are worse but why don't you check out the weight of an average SUV (there are far more of those than EVs). So what I'm saying is that if you're looking to blame it all on vehicle weight, then you should be talking about SUVs. And most of them are non EV obviously. Why have you skipped past SUVs, which are far more numerous and have been around far far longer than EVs ? Why? Yes, EVs will make it worse but I suggest potholes are far less an issue than climate change and pollution. The real solution is people get off their fat asses and do what we used to do, walk and cycle (like in the good ole days) and if they cannot do that for whatever legitimate reason, then get off their fat asses and complain to the government in power about the terrible state of public transport.
>luton airport
it was not actually confirmed as the cars on fire masked the initial suspected vehicle
New guidance from The Institution of Structural Engineers calls for the car park design to evolve to cope with bigger, heavier electric cars..
https://www.istructe.org/resources/news/car-park-design-needs-to-evolve-to-cope-with-bigge/
Yep, stronger car parks will be needed as vehicles get heavier.
Re Luton, all the articles I've read said diesel vehicle was the cause. Also, read on one article that had they had sprinklers installed, it would have been alright and that the cost of the sprinkler system was only a few £1000.
You're blaming the wrong people. Council spending power has dropped 27% since 2010 and the recent high inflation has taken its toll with increased costs. I don't see this talked about but the weight of cars is going up all the time, which must be having an impact
It can be both. My council, Coventry, are horrendously wasteful, which is just an objective fact when looking at what they do with the money.
I just had a conv with a cat who's involved in council audits. You may find it [illuminating](https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1bie7dc/roads_at_breaking_point_as_pothole_repairs_hit/kvkekqf/).
Such as..
I can think of three examples off the top of my head: 1) Using an old IKEA building for a 'cultural centre' nobody wants or asked for, and keeping their spend on it confidential. Yes, they are keeping it a secret, how much of our money is going into it. 2) buying a waste removal firm and paying a fortune to continue waste removal services instead of addressing the strike action taken by workers. 3) buying a poorly performing hotel during a pandemic, and making a big loss on it. I'm sure I can think of more once I've had my coffee. Oh and a bonus one, paying millions in equal pay claims which are bullshit, because the jobs aren't comparable, and therefore can legitimately have different terms.
All councils have to publish annual budgets and are subject to FoI requests, so the claim about that project being confidential doesn't wash. It also sounds like it's capital funding which has very little to do with roads and is often ringfenced money that has conditions attached to it. If the council doesn't spend it, they lose it for the following year. You can blame central government for that. Servicing and maintenance is more expensive in-house. Outsourcing it to contractors saves councils millions each year (I should know, it's literally my job to manage several of these contracts). Fair enough on the third one, but I suspect that falls into the capital funding bracket or is a prime example please of councils being so starved of revenue that they are forced to take on more and more risky ventures. The equal pay thing doesn't just apply to councils.. many major firms have been stung by it (Tesco and Asda spring to mind). I'm not sure how it is in England but there are directives set by the Scottish Government which outline how public sector workers should be paid. Councils up here technically set their own labour costs, but they have to tie in with the rules which govern national public sector workers. The lack of understanding of how councils are funded and operated is a major issue amongst the general population. Needs to be taught better in schools and more people should really be checking annual budgets and independent audits which are all easily accessed online. Instead they just moan about brown envelopes and how councils sit about doing nothing while using £10 notes to spark up a fag. Couldn't be further from the truth. Every single penny is watched.
I do t believe it’s cheaper to outsource, as I know exactly what happens when a council contract goes to tender. Everyone in the game triples their price.
As I said previously, I literally carry out tender evaluations as part of my role. I can assure you that the prices on our service contracts are a good percentage lower than the market rate. We even have built-in repair costs which again are lower than the market rate. The reason companies do this is because they still make money, have a steady income stream, have a visible presence in the area, and it generates other business for them. A quick example for you, we pay £10 per circuit on EICRs which is a lot lower than the market rate.. on average it's about double that price in the private sector.
Who tells you the market rate?
I'm in constant contact with contractors.
Ahh…
Has it, my council tax went from £2200 in 2020, now its over £3000. I am sure the tarmac on motorways sees a lot more heavier vehicles per day than other roads... I dont see any patches on them....however when I see poor repairs on local roads all the time, sometimes last until the next load of rain.
Motorways and national highways recieve 31x the maintenance budget per year. Yes, actually an order of magnitude the budget per mile. For every £1,000 available to spend on the road outside your house, the equivalent length of motorway gets £31,000. https://www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/UK-falls-down-OECD-table-as-local-roads-spending-halves/12439
Council tax doesn't pay for roads, they receive an annual grant from central government to spend on road maintenance. Would you prefer councils to fill potholes instead of caring for the elderly? Now, I'm not saying councils aren't shit with our money, some more so than others, but this one is on the tories 100%
Put the elderly in the potholes
My nan is receiving enhanced care funding and I still laughed at this audibly. I'm going to hell
There’s an election coming up and you can count on my vote.
Turns out pensioners are not ULEZ compliant so I may face some difficulties in places such as London.
Yes I would.
When was the last time you heard of decent care homes or elderly having to sell their home to pay for the care home etc. They ain't doing either. Several million for more ULEZ though 👍
Wtf has ulez got to do with anything?
Jeeez, one moment ULEZ is all about making money (bringing too much money into the council). The next it’s too expensive.
I don’t know which motorways you’re driving in, but there are plenty in the UK that have atrocious surfaces. The M25 springs immediately to mind.
Often the reason for this is that local roads are full of sewers, water mains, gas lines, telecoms, and electricity each with their own connections into each house. Add in roads drainage and street lighting and there is plenty to go wrong under the road. This means local roads are dug up frequently by various statutory undertakers. Leading to differences in subgrade compaction which can cause differential settlement and areas for water to sit. The joints in surfacing are also common points of failure for defects to form as can allow water ingress.
You don't see people turning corners and braking on the motorway....that's when the heaviness of modern cars destroys the surface...
Just blame lorries
No braking on the motorway. Are you sure?
Excluding rubbish drivers obviously and even then you're only reducing speed by 5-10 mph. Not 20-30.
No need to brake if you’re not moving
Suppose if you have two punctures caused by potholes you won't be going far.
You obviously haven’t driven in lane 1 on any motorway in the last 18 months.
Motorways are made of tougher stuff than usual roads. Hence normally more noise but more resistant to wear.
It all boils down to lack of funding.
I think a pot hole on a motorway can be lethal. I see lots of residents locally complaining about pot holes on 20 roads and really don't get it. They're struggling to fund adult social care. In that context, who cares about pot holes on a road where you can just slow down a couple mph and not even feel it or drive around it entirely Fair enough on a dark NSL country road where it's going to wreck your suspension but those seem to get fixed pretty quickly when reported
think mine is 1500, but that is before discounts
Trucks and vans are heavy though and with more of those on the roads than ever before I can’t believe it’s only heavier cars (code for EVs and hybrids) to blame.
Weight of cars, and the number of miles driven has gone up rapidly over the last few decades.
your giving a non excuse for councils failing in a statutory duty. and for failing to ensure that repairs to roads are actually conducted to a high enough standard that they will last this is there own "contractors" and also when utilities dig up the road we have, on a main road, a recurring deep pothole every 2-4 weeks and the company paid to "fix it" just slaps some wet set down and runs knowing they will be back to fix it next week. thats on a Major A road in the area the minor roads are getting to the point many of them are only passable by 4x4 due to the size and depth of the holes, and perpetual flooding.
Roads have been shot for the last 20-30 years, this isn’t since electric vehicles- a lot heavier and more suvs on the road. Councils are to blame. By any chance do you know what the councils do with the millions they get from parking tickets ??
If you only have a limited amount of money to spend, don’t you think it would be a good idea to spend it on the necessities, like roads and rubbish collection, tbh that’s the only reason I pay my council tax, it’s not my fault they then spend it on everything other than roads and rubbish collection.
So fuck education and social care? Guess they aren't necessities.
No, they’re not. Infrastructure is a necessity, and most schools are academies now, who are funded directly by central government. People seem to forget as funding for local governments have gone down, central government has actually increased its burden.
Can't say I'm familiar with English councils and their role in education but that's very much not how it works north of the border. Spending in English schools has barely increased since 2009-10 think I read it was a 2% per pupil rise. Now factor in inflation and you'll see it's a massive cut in spending. Tbf Scottish schools have a much higher spend per pupil but it means it takes a massive chunk out of the council budget. Edit: my mistake, spending per head has gone down since 2010 in England. https://ifs.org.uk/news/growing-gap-school-spending-pupil-between-scotland-and-rest-uk#:~:text=We%20look%20at%20gaps%20in%20school%20spending%20between%20nations%20in%20the%20UK.&text=In%20the%20most%20recent%20year,around%20%C2%A37%2C200%20per%20pupil. Second edit: had a wee look into your claim that most English schools aren't funded or managed by local authorities. That's simply untrue.. of the 24000 odd English schools, only 2300 odd are academies. That's less than 10% https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/how-many-schools-in-the-uk https://www.tes.com/magazine/leadership/strategy/academisation-how-schools-become-academies-and-join-MATs
Not to mention that most academies I have heard of are selective. The minute you allow selective entry conditions costs go way down. The disruptive student with learning difficulties, homecare issues, etc who needs much more staff support likely won't pass entry exams (already struggling)... Also parental involvement can make a huge difference, both to passing entry exams and attainment; (And according to a family member who is a retired teacher, telling if the parents are supportive is generally easy) (look into cambridge/oxford state schools - they manage insane stuff because parent X can arrange for demos etc from the uni/uni adjacent research labs they work at, that no school can afford/is equipped to do) So central gov funds have then been reallocated from councils to academies, while also focusing the most expensive students on the council schools...
Yep, and all against the backdrop of teachers leaving the profession at alarming rates, making the job of those left behind even more difficult.
The 1320 MAT will have multiple schools within them.
Fair dos, not enough that it's a majority I suspect. Will have to look into it more. Simple fact is the majority of councils across the UK are responsible for delivering education and it eats up a huge chunk of their budget. That anyone is arguing that education and social care are not necessitites is kinda worrying. The nation is dumb enough already and the welfare state is creaking at the knees.. why anyone would be advocating for more of that over fixing a pothole is beyond me. Edit: my quick maths tells me that 6600 schools are outwith council control. So less than a third are academy schools. https://www.local.gov.uk/topics/children-and-young-people/academies-and-la-maintained-schools-inspection-analysis
Social care literally is a necessity, as there are statutory obligations on councils to provide it. It's typically about sixty - seventy per cent of a council's spend. Meanwhile, most councils have seen their real terms funding drop by over fifty per cent since 2010.
The weight of cars is still nothing compared to the fully laden HGVs driving about 24/7.
HGVs deliver stuff we all use. We could starve, or replace each HGV with, I dunno, 20 vans?
For someone who seems pissed off enough to post online, you seem to have done no research into how these things actually work. Local councils have 3 income streams: council tax, business rates (from dying high streets) and funding from central government. When the Tories came in they started cutting funding to local councils. 40% real term cuts since 2010. Meaning they obviously have to raise council tax for residents **and** spend less on public services (like fixing the roads), just to try and balance the books. Honestly, if you want someone to blame, blame the government. They’re the ones increasing your taxes but not passing the value down to you through improved public services.
It's simply smart politics by Cameron. Slash local council funding, things like roads won't actually suffer for quite a few years as it takes time for issues relating to a lack of maintenance to surface. Once it does happen you can just point to local government as the problem. It relies on the general population being generally uneducated, as well as uninformed about how UK state systems function, so it of course worked like an absolute charm and you get threads like this.
Never ceases to amaze me the amount of people who feel strongly enough about an issue to post / rant / complain online - but don’t feel strongly enough about it to actually google it and try to understand it.
I rarely use FB any more but on the odd occasion that I do there is guaranteed to be a post blaming the council for something. Often it's an issue where local government has no remit too 😂
Yes and now councils are being offered loans to bridge the gap, typical Tory kicking the can down the road reaction to the problem.
I'd also add that council tax is for revenue purposes only. All project works comes from capital funding from central government. Councl tax makes up a minority prevent of civil funding too, so even less revenue money to go around once you take into the cost of inflation for construction materials since 2020. Council spending power is at an all time low. Not sure how it works south of the border but in Scotland approx 50% of all council budgets are reserved solely for education and social care, again forever reducing council spending power and flexibility.
Think you'll find that's the Tories in central government who are in the photo
I thought it was partnof our council tax that goes towards repairing the roads.....central government pays for the motorways, which I have to say, are pretty clear of holes...
Whilst Central Government is only directly responsible for the Strategic Road Network, local Highway Authorities are still dependent on central government funding. Inflation in construction in recent years has been running at about 20%. Local authority tax increases are capped at 5%, of which 40% is ringfenced for Adult Social Care. The block grant given by treasury to local authorities does not cover the gap. So yes, this goes back to central government.
There are certain services that councils are legally obliged to provide, such as social care. That means other services are cut as budgets get squeezed. Councils are obliged to maintain local streets so that they are safe to use (including gritting) but pot holes don't generally cause injury, so you can see why they aren't prioritised.
Oh ok, if it doesnt hurt someone we will leave it....just let to poor saps spend the money they havent got on repairing their cars....I am on tyre 4 this year, luckily no wheel damage....drove past 5 cars parked on the side of the road the other month, all went in the same hole. Welcome to 2024
>Oh ok, if it doesnt hurt someone we will leave it Yes, if the choice is between funding essential services like social care or saving people's suspension systems a bit of wear and a tear, the council obviously have no choice but to choose the former.
Roads seem garbage in towns (round here anyway) currently. I reported one over 3 months ago which is a drain that's sunk about 6" on a corner so you need to stop if there's cars coming or you will take damage. When on my bike (pedal) you can see the extent - and have to dodge it. We have one area near a hospital that you can't do more than 20Mph on in a normal hatchback.
The difference between towns and motorways is the funding available. Government allocates 31x more spending for motorways on a per mile basis.
If you're in Scotland there's a very good chance that hospital road will be limited to 20mph by the end of the year.
Try driving with your eyes open.
Your a cunny funt
You’re*
I am out
How do you expect them to repair roads without the resources required to do so? Councils are not magicians.
Funding is from central government and has been cut by half since 2010. I wonder what happened in 2010… https://news.sky.com/story/uk-spends-least-out-of-13-nations-on-repairing-roads-blighted-by-potholes-12938409
It’s almost as if the motorways are purpose-built, engineered roads…
All roads are purpose built and engineered. Motorways receive [31x](https://www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/UK-falls-down-OECD-table-as-local-roads-spending-halves/12439) more funding than roads owned by local councils.
No, they aren’t. The vast majority of local authority roads are what’s termed “evolved” roads, i.e. they have evolved over time from being old dirt tracks, to Roman roads, to Telford roads, and then some iteration of “modern” construction. This means they are not purpose built, and the cost of rebuilding them to modern standards would be prohibitively expensive.
They have to be pretty clear of potholes. If someone whacks a pothole going 70 they'll probably die and take a few others out with them. That'll certainly make the government look a bit bad.
except most city councils are controlled by Labour.
All councils rely on funding from central government. Your council tax doesn't cover all of their outgoings, it never has. Central government has cut funding to councils hence why you're seeing so many go bankrupt. It's less a case of money mismanagement it's more just not recieving enough money in the first place.
>All councils rely on funding from central government. And? They still decide where the funding goes. And lets not pretend councils are efficient. >Central government has cut funding to councils Incorrect for the last 3-4 years. Been a year on year increase in local government funding since 2020. https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/local-government-funding-england >hence why you're seeing so many go bankrupt. No, we are seeing so many go bankrupt because they waste huge amounts of their budgets on things that dont matter. >It's less a case of money mismanagement it's more just not recieving enough money in the first place. Wrong.
I'm not being funny mate. Did you read what you linked? >How has local government funding changed since 2010? >Local authority ‘spending power’ – the amount of money authorities have to spend from government grants, council tax and business rates – fell by 17.5% between 2009/10 and 2019/20, before partially recovering. However, in 2021/22 it was still 10.2% below 2009/10 levels. >The fall in spending power is largely because of reductions in central government grants. These grants were cut by 40% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2019/20, from £46.5bn to £28.0bn (2023/24 prices). This downward trend was reversed in 2020/21 and 2021/22 as central government made more grant funding available to local government in response to the pressures of the pandemic. Though even including Covid grants, the fall in grant income was still 21% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2021/22; without, the fall was 31%. So everything I said is true and your rebuttal is incorrect, as proved by the link you so kindly provided. Thanks for making it easy for me
Yeah, but ALL local councils are failing to keep the roads in a good state of repair - roads are often just as bad in Tory controlled council areas. This is mostly because the central funding from government (which is where the majority of council funding comes from) has been cut deliberately and repeatedly since 2010. Council tax and road tax are only a part of the picture and without that central funding, all councils simply don't have the money to do everything they used to do.
>This is mostly because the central funding from government (which is where the majority of council funding comes from) has been cut deliberately and repeatedly since 2010. Wrong Funding has been increasing year on year since 2016, with significant increases over the last 3-4 years: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/local-government-funding-england
>The fall in spending power is largely because of reductions in central government grants. These grants were cut by 40% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2019/20, from £46.5bn to £28.0bn (2023/24 prices). This downward trend was reversed in 2020/21 and 2021/22 as central government made more grant funding available to local government in response to the pressures of the pandemic. It's literally written on the site you linked
I live in the Tory heartlands with Tory councillors. The roads are shit everywhere.
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> The cost of that is skyrocketing, and central government simply isn't providing the necessary funding to bridge the gap. If anything, they're making it worse because of the £86,000 care limit. The government hasn't explained how that won't just leave yet another massive hole in council budgets. They've promised some kind of funding, but it hasn't materialised yet.
Or even repainting road markings that really need doing
This! There's a junction near me without a give way sign that is now an unprioritised crossroads as the paint is essentially all gone. However, some locals give way and others less familiar with the area don't. Dangerous.
So the roads round here have effectively been abandoned. What’s to stop us fixing the worst holes ourselves?
They've started putting up signs round here that say "welcome to pot hole city"
Blaim central government. IIRC it used to be that most funding came from central government grants, not council tax. AFAIK now the opposite is true because central grants have been slashed. Also central government for a very long time has been using council tax freezes as a vote buying tool. The problem is even if grants are supplied to cover the increase that would be expected under inflation, at some point these stop, at which point the council now has to increase tax in line with years of inflation, not just the last year... Remember, basically EVERY council in the UK is in dire straits. Occams Razor says if it is a choice between every council having bad management or the single point of central government screwing it up, then central government is to blaim... Take RAAC issues in public buildings - there is a strong argument that the material choice was correct; The problem is that the people designing/certifying it did specify a design life at the time; for the buildings in question a RAAC ceiling replaced every 30 years quite possibly is/was the cheapest option. The problem is noone put aside the investment to replace them 5-10 years ago when they were approaching EOL at 30 years old... Central gov blaims councils etc, while failing to mention that the councils aren't necessarily allowed under funding rules to put aside a section of school maintenance budgets on the basis that they will need to spend 5-10 years budget on a roof every 30 years...
VED or as it’s commonly referred to road tax pays for the roads not your council tax
VED doesn't either. It goes into one big pot.
The “pot” helps fund road maintenance and projects as well as other infrastructure.
Yes, but other money also goes into that pot. As I understand it, road tax does alone would not cover it anyway.
So my statement is not incorrect. Thanks for the pointless comment.
I just added more context, don't take it so personally. [https://www.ponko.co.uk/blog/what-is-road-tax-used-for](https://www.ponko.co.uk/blog/what-is-road-tax-used-for) [https://www.osv.ltd.uk/where-does-vehicle-tax-go/#what-does](https://www.osv.ltd.uk/where-does-vehicle-tax-go/#what-does) "Once upon a time, road tax did pay for our roads. But, the motorcar boom of 1896-1936 happened and the money the government received in vehicle tax simply wasn’t enough to cover our sudden need for more roads and roads of better quality. So the authorities, both local and general, stepped in and started paying for it. And since then, our roads are funded by the government and not directly by what we pay in road tax."
Almost no taxes you pay to central government in the UK are hypothecated (allocated to a specific need).
They need to remove the 0% council tax for free loaders. If you don't pay council tax, you don't get council services.
Yes, more selfishness and fewer social safety nets will surely fix everything that's going wrong in this country, just as it has been since 2010 when everything started markedly improving. 🙄
Yeah, why would we copy the model of countries like Denmark, with some of the happiest citizens in the world with good social safety nets and public infrastructure, when we could instead copy our friends over the pond with their selfish, neo-liberal model. Why should I pay for someone else's healthcare etc? Also I'll soon need a gun when crime increases as a result of neglecting the undesirables!
Well the recent figure(2020) was 1.3 million who don't pay council tax. I bet this is now in 2-3 millions. Why do other tax payers have to sponsor free loaders?
Who do you think should pay? Children? Full time students? Perhaps the mentally impaired? Oh I know: live-in carers, those people get all the breaks.
This data does not include people who are not supposed to pay council tax. It is the data for who has to pay council but yet don't pay or register themselves as exempt.
>This data What data? That's usually the moment when you present the data.
Citizens advice data. Google it up.
You're the one quoting the made up data. Link your source, if it's so easy to find it'll only take you a second.
If you're making a claim, the burden of proof is on *you* to provide it. If you want to actually change anyone's mind or just win the argument, provide the evidence to show us you're right.
This is not a court. I merely quoted a fact from a reliable website. You can google it yourself, not that hard.
The principle is the same. If you're not willing to back up something you're saying with facts, it's just another bullshit opinion on the Internet until proven otherwise. If you want us to think you don't actually have the facts to support what you're saying, congratulations, you've succeeded.
Seems like you're bullshitting ... and you expect us to prove you're not?
butubutbubububut they are bankrupt!!! We need to pay more to help them duhh! They'll fix the potholes once we are paying 80% of our wage on them!
Ya this isn't the councils fault it's THE TORIES FAULT!!! Councils can spend money on lamb bananas and housing dingy boat immigrants, escaping the war in France for a safer place in the UK and this is money way better spent than on pot holes!!! And they probably get some kind of kick backs from awarding local contracts, which they need because they're very underpaid! All because of THE EVIL TORIES!!!
I mean the Tories absolutely are evil and have ruined this country beyond belief, everything wrong with today's country can in someway be linked to the awful handling on the tories. Liebour won't be much better so really all I can vote for is Lib Dems, and they betrayed us (you were supposed to destroy the enemy not join them!).... It's a bleak future.
Sorry, we needed two community engagement managers and a diversity officer. Buy some bigger wheels.
all down to these poxy EV cars that are collapsing car parks like the one at luton airport earlier and are far too heavy for the roads
Oh yeah we didn't have potholes before EVs.
but those that we do are a lot bigger, check out the weights of ev cars compared to non ev and you will get the idea
Yes potholes are worse but why don't you check out the weight of an average SUV (there are far more of those than EVs). So what I'm saying is that if you're looking to blame it all on vehicle weight, then you should be talking about SUVs. And most of them are non EV obviously. Why have you skipped past SUVs, which are far more numerous and have been around far far longer than EVs ? Why? Yes, EVs will make it worse but I suggest potholes are far less an issue than climate change and pollution. The real solution is people get off their fat asses and do what we used to do, walk and cycle (like in the good ole days) and if they cannot do that for whatever legitimate reason, then get off their fat asses and complain to the government in power about the terrible state of public transport.
Apologies, fat asses means lazy people.
Yes, the Diesel vehicle that started the fire which led to the collapse was definitely caused by EVs! /s Edit: missed a word
>luton airport it was not actually confirmed as the cars on fire masked the initial suspected vehicle New guidance from The Institution of Structural Engineers calls for the car park design to evolve to cope with bigger, heavier electric cars.. https://www.istructe.org/resources/news/car-park-design-needs-to-evolve-to-cope-with-bigge/
Yep, stronger car parks will be needed as vehicles get heavier. Re Luton, all the articles I've read said diesel vehicle was the cause. Also, read on one article that had they had sprinklers installed, it would have been alright and that the cost of the sprinkler system was only a few £1000.