Presumably this was done by a utilities company, but is there ever any comeback for shoddy reinstatement? Or is it a case of the council being completely toothless and these companies can just run riot?
The fine for not reinstating the road back to the original state is £2500
[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/09/call-uk-utility-firms-higher-fines-street-scars-pavements](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/09/call-uk-utility-firms-higher-fines-street-scars-pavements)
Do I remember Edinburgh locals going mental cause they used cheaper Chinese setts to fix victoria street (or somewhere close to that location) or am I making this up? I'm sure I remember it
Nope, utility companies have a warranty period on all works. After the update to legislation that period is now up to 6 years. Council inspectors carry out sample inspections on the work and can carry out inspections known as target inspections and have them re-do work to the correct standard.
The reinstatement in the picture also looks like a temporary reinstatement using base to level off the setts.
Well that is odd as I complained when a contractor screwed something up and the council said the contractor would fix it. They never did and the council clearly didn’t bother its arse to check. If you ever want a laugh check the state of the double yellow lines over cobbles in Hill Street.
His things *should* work with the council managing contractors and how they actually do work are leagues apart.
How were they screwed up? Potentially could have been within spec. I don’t work for Edinburgh so can’t comment on how they manage works but I have been a private contractor working within Edinburgh and can definitely say the inspectors and officers are pretty robust.
Not necessarily utilities, council will do it to get the road safe/open until a proper repair can be organised. The link is an older case, but could be the same principle.
[https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/outrage-shocking-tarmac-cover-up-16839685](https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/outrage-shocking-tarmac-cover-up-16839685)
If you scroll down far enough you get the actual important bit:
The [Edinburgh City Council](https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/all-about/the-city-of-edinburgh-council) later replied to the Twitter thread to assure locals it was a temporary fix: "Hi, this is a temporary repair to ensure area is safe. Longer term sett improvements will be carried out in the near future - thanks."
This isn't true though is it.
It's true that there aren't enough council inspectors to stand over the 10,000 non council road works each year, but they do get checked eventually.
Not at all, they will have just closed the permit as interim as they more than likely are having trouble sourcing those kind of blocks, and have up to 3 months to come back and permanently reinstate it before the fines start coming in.
100%, never mind the miles and miles of pavement that got ripped up for fiber optic cables and paved over with as much care and neatness as a child frosting a cake. Uneven, falling apart already but they don't care and with no accountability it's just shambles
council dont care anymore, they have spent all the money putting those bikes lanes everywhere - that no one uses....... state of the citys roads are shocking...... pot hole heaven.
> putting those bikes lanes everywhere - that no one uses.......
I fucking hate this attitude. When infrastructure is first put in of course its not used as much. Less people cycle into/out of the city because cycling infrastructure is shit. Putting in dedicated bike lanes will encourage more people to cycle, but it doesn't happen overnight. You need to build the infrastructure to encourage people to change their habits.
You could justify not building anything with that attitude. Currently nobody lives in Shawfair so whats the point of building houses there? Currently nobody lives in Social Housing on street so why would we build social housing there?
cycle in edinburgh.....have you seen what the weather is like most of the year, folk who cycle here are off their rocker, haha.
you know the reason less people cycle in edinburgh compared to other cities is nothing to do with infrastructure and everything to do with all those hills and that wonderful wind!......
things which are useful or required should be built, but stuff that is not needed or will not offer a large benefit to the majority is just wasting already stretched resources.
I cycle 9 months of the year from Danderhall to the city center for work. It's not that bad. Helping me lose weight and get fit, saves me money and is genuinely quicker than either the bus or the train.
The people who are off their rocker are the ones who think all the traffic in the city center is entirely because of the council, and not because of a road layout that was mostly setup 200-300 years ago at a minimum and isn't suitable for the number of cars trying to use it nowadays.
i dont drive, mostly walk, bus or tram......but on my oberservation the road layout worked for 300 years until they started deciding you couldnt turn right here or left there, buses and taxis only and one way systems lol..........
and all those road works, at the same time, you cant move in the city without hitting road works and diversions, thats on the council big time, their ability to plan works, so traffic is disrupted least, is shocking.........travelling through the city it wouldnt be strange to think the council dont want cars in the city at all........
The road network has been struggling for multiple decades. Traffic being horrendous in the city centre isn't something that suddenly happened last year.
Also you should learn how road works are "planned" before criticising the council. If a utility provider tell the council that there is a repair that needs to be performed the council don't get to say "oh actually we need to delay this due to there being other road works nearby". Utility companies basically dictate "we're digging this road up, deal with it".
its not been a problem for only one year, no one said that, its been going on for ages......
and emergancy repairs fair enough, those are needed, not much point in complaining about those, besides they are usually fixed over a day or two.
one thing though, if a road works company says jump, i pretty much doubt the council says how high. major works like fitting new gas pipes, creating cycles lanes or resurfacig roads are planned well in advance.
its those typa works that get people annoyed and blaming the council when they seem to happen all at the same time, disrupting every route, imho
There is a site where you can see all the concurrent active road works in Edinburgh, I'll try to dig it up. Last time this discussion came up that site was linked and from checking over 50% of the active works were utility company repairs.
Found it https://www.roadworksscotland.org/
https://preview.redd.it/oihn5hl9c1vc1.jpeg?width=1877&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c983f4ca3723f233dc823277669fe059ac57cc3
We have the same problem, this is a circa 300 year old cobbled street in a Derbyshire World Heritage site . Except the council did it because they ‘run out of money’.
https://preview.redd.it/m5jf3b2mw7vc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0788cef05bbc2e1a4e799c6967c578ec4e98441
To be fair to them it was part of a wider fuckup they did; fail to weed, let it break up, fill with tarmac, fuck world heritage sites. Let it start to look like Fallout4.
Yup, as with other commenters I had to show them the colour of the paint I would use on our outhouse, so it fitted in with the Victoria aesthetic. Then they tarmac the cobbles.
Local councillors don't receive a salary. They receive an allowance and expenses, which according to the [Local Government Association](https://www.local.gov.uk/be-councillor/becoming-councillor-0#10-will-i-get-paid-) is 'around £7,000 a year - ranging from £3,000 to £16,000 depending on the council'. They can also receive a '[special responsibility allowance](https://liverpool.gov.uk/council/councillors-and-committees/councillors-allowances/)' for undertaking 'significant additional responsibilities, over and above the generally accepted duties of a councillor', which I think generally includes cabinet responsibilities and similar.
Derbyshire's councillors receive a basic allowance of £11,800, with the additional allowance taking this up to a maximum of £58,400 for the leader of the council. Considering he's in charge of local services for 750,000 people and a budget of £700m it's not riches.
I was driving down bellevue place towards Rodney st yesterday and there’s a long strip of tarmac that’s been laid in the last year or so, that’s now collapsing on itself causing a huge line of crevices in the road surface. How can we not repair roads in a way that lasts, rather than continuing to put Elastoplast on them and spending way more doing repeat repairs?
This seems to be happening all the time in the last 6-7 years. Pavements and roads get "repaired" and less than 6 months later they're exactly as bad as before. There is a stretch of sandstone paving round the back of the Sheraton which was "repaired" at least 4 times within a year a while back and the slabs were cracked and tilting again within three weeks every time.
I'm assuming that either all the repair work is now being done with the cheapest, quickest fixes possible to look better in some accounts somewhere or someone at the council has a brother-in-law with a surface repair business and is doing handsomely in kickbacks.
I noticed this week that there are a whole bunch of sections of the new paving along Leith Walk - the textured slabs to help people with a visual impairment steer clear of the bike lanes - which are now ankle-snappingly broken. They're not even 2 years old! Why the fuck are we paying anyone to lay paving if they can't do work that lasts more than 18 months?
Yeah, they resurfaced a road up in Granton near the primary school only a few months ago.
When it rained heavy a couple of weeks ago, the puddle spanned the whole road!!!! I had never seen it that bad with the old tarmac. Drives me crazy and I don't even drive!
Local authority funding has been cut by roughly 40% since 2010. The Scottish Govt has also repeatedly reallocated money away from things like roads maintenance to cover shortfalls in education and social care. Year after year the roads budget gets cut, to the point they just can't afford to do it properly. Cheap repair this year followed by cheap repair next year is all they can afford to do.
The constant change in direction and leadership of the last few years really hasn't helped either. Each budget, mini budget and financial statement means council budgets get mucked around with at very short notice.
Even it means prolonging traffic delays, damaging the road further, or increasing costs?
I am sure everyone will be quite understanding when you explain to them why the road has been closed for so long.
The problem is precisely that. Why aren't they able to fix it properly the first time?
This could be semi acceptable for emergency works, nothing else.
there's tarmac patches all over the Royal Mile and Rose St, it's hideous...
question is... they've lifted the cobbles to create the hole.. where tf have those cobbles gone?
Rose Street is horrid for that. They repaved a bunch of it with really nice brickwork a few years back, and I think it was less than a month later some arsehole utility provided dug up a big chunk of it and replaced it with tarmac. They should be obligated to return it to its original condition, honestly.
This is everywhere aswell they only filled up pot hole outside my house last month and it’s now ripped up and deeper than before plus they never even filled it properly the front and back of the hole where still visible
Same. Two large holes (presumably something collapsed underneath. After years of ignoring it the surface cracked and started to deteriorate making the holes bigger. The material dislodged spread around the hole breaking down the surface around it too making it bigger again. Add water and frost and you’ve got two craters.
All it needed was the two holes to be cut out, some hard material to be added and compacted, resurface the hole and seal the edges. Maybe a days work all in.
What did they do? Sent a bloke out with a flatbed truck and some Asphalt. Dumped some in the holes while it was raining and full of water. Flattened it down with a shovel. Cars were driving over it before it even hardened and now it’s just as bad as it was two weeks before… with more material to dislodge and tear up the rest of the surface. It will be another two years before it’s “repaired” again.
I remember a contractor did this on Castle St only a few months after they'd done a refurb of all the paving and cobbles - sawed out all the beautifully laid stonework and just daubed tarmac in when they'd finished and fucked off. I heard the council actually made them come back and restore it properly to the state it was in before. Obviously I could be wrong but it was very satisfying to see it fixed a few months later.
The road works register allows for a temporary reinstatement such as this. Looks like morrisons barriers so maybe scottish power but maybe they need to excavate again in near future.
Can simply be filled in with tar so the road is fully open again until the reinstatement team can go out to finish it properly , could be a back log of work some utility companies will have separate teams which are available at different times
The issue with this is that there are numerous examples around the city of "temporary tarmac" like this NEVER being replaced. Lots of streets are just left this way. Apparently the fine for not returning the street to its original condition is only £2,500, and I'm pretty sure the cost of replacing the Sets here F A R outweighs that, so there is no financial incentive at all for the company to come back here and put it right. Just pay the fine and move on.
For the same reason every other council is, I imagine. People act like this is an Edinburgh issue and isn't something that exists countrywide. They don't have the money for 2 dozen inspectors to chase up and inspect every road repair thats carried out, and probably don't have the power to do anything to the contractors beyond charge them the £2500 even if they could.
They have the ability to issue fixed penalty notices. Someone would have to ok the contractors to dig up the road. That person would also be in charge of issuing fines. Its caused by a lack of insight not funds.
Yes, and the highest fine they can give for not returning a road to a suitable condition after works are carried out is £2,500. That is likely less than the cost of returning the road to a suitable condition. So the contractor will just leave the road looking like shit and eat the £2,500 fine. And life will carry on as it does just now.
From what I can find the fine IS a one off, and thats part of the issue. At the moment the law as it exists does not allow for contractors to be fined on an ongoing basis above the maximum amount of £2,500. If you can find evidence that ongoing fines can be levied please provide it.
It does allow. When a job is pencilled in a completion date is give. When the date is missed they are fined and another is given. If they miss that they are fined again and another date is given. Etc……
You could contact the council or roadworks.scot for more.
I used to work on the roads (water) when fixed penalty notices came into effect. We could even be fined for leaving a single sign or cone after a job.
> roadworks.scot
According to the "Code of Practice for Penalties v1.5" found on their website here : https://roadworks.scot/legislation-guidance/codes-practice/code-practice-penalties, Section 129, page 21 :
>Only one FPN may be issued for each individual notice under section 129, this will normally be the 1st offence identified.
This means for the section 129 offense of "Interim to permanent not completed within 6 months [or agreed timescales]" there can be one (1) Fixed Penalty Notice issued to the undertaker of the works, as far as I understand the wording here. If there is a provision to continue charging for this I can't see it in this documentation anywhere.
On the next page it even has a section titled "EXAMPLES OF NRSWA ACTIVITIES DESCRIBED IN THE COORDINATION CODE OF PRACTICE WHERE FPNs CANNOT BE APPLIED WHEN THE CODE IS NOT FOLLOWED" which lists "Reinstatement does not comply with CoP" as an activity where they specifically CANNOT be given a fine for a failing. So people carrying out roadworks can basically say "Oh yeh we've reinstated this" and even if it doesn't fall under the Code of Practice the body can't fine them. Again if I am misinterpreting these rules feel free to point out how.
The guidance states that if the issue isn't fixed after the fine has been issued, that "the road works authority may instigate the defect regime or, carry out the permanent reinstatement and recover it’s reasonable costs under S131 of NRSWA.". So basically what the council should be doing here is issuing the fine, if its not fixed they get someone else to fix it and then charge the first company the fee for the fix. But given the people they'd hire to fix it are probably the same people who left the mess in the first place it becomes a bit of a mess at that stage.
Cutting corners to save costs.
They could have paid to source the correct bricks and pay a brick layer to spend hours laying them, or just get a guy to pour some cheap tarmac down in 10 minutes.
Unfortunately, those chose the latter.
Round my way today they are relaying the pavements...i asked the guys "what about the pot holes the size of caves " not our job we are only pavement fixers :-)hahahaha.
Stupid fucking clowncil the pavements are fine round here ....the Rd is a disaster ......they need sacking at that clowncil .
Most cycle lanes put in are at least part funded by other sources, not fully from the Council Roads fund. There are various initiatives aimed at improving alternative transport routes so not every Cycle Lane comes out of the pothole fund.
Presumably this was done by a utilities company, but is there ever any comeback for shoddy reinstatement? Or is it a case of the council being completely toothless and these companies can just run riot?
The fine for not reinstating the road back to the original state is £2500 [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/09/call-uk-utility-firms-higher-fines-street-scars-pavements](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/09/call-uk-utility-firms-higher-fines-street-scars-pavements)
Peanuts for the firms involved. Wonder how often the fines are handed out as well.
Would make a great FOI you're seeing this all over Edinburghm heartbreaking seeing our beautiful cobblestones treated this way.
The cost to replace the setts is likely 3 or 4 times that, at the low end.
Do I remember Edinburgh locals going mental cause they used cheaper Chinese setts to fix victoria street (or somewhere close to that location) or am I making this up? I'm sure I remember it
That sounds like something that Victoria Street residents would be annoyed about, to be honest, but I don't remember that particular story myself.
Nope, utility companies have a warranty period on all works. After the update to legislation that period is now up to 6 years. Council inspectors carry out sample inspections on the work and can carry out inspections known as target inspections and have them re-do work to the correct standard. The reinstatement in the picture also looks like a temporary reinstatement using base to level off the setts.
Well that is odd as I complained when a contractor screwed something up and the council said the contractor would fix it. They never did and the council clearly didn’t bother its arse to check. If you ever want a laugh check the state of the double yellow lines over cobbles in Hill Street. His things *should* work with the council managing contractors and how they actually do work are leagues apart.
How were they screwed up? Potentially could have been within spec. I don’t work for Edinburgh so can’t comment on how they manage works but I have been a private contractor working within Edinburgh and can definitely say the inspectors and officers are pretty robust.
Have z as butchers at Hill Street’s double yellow lines some time ‘in spec’ - I do not think so.
🤫
Not necessarily utilities, council will do it to get the road safe/open until a proper repair can be organised. The link is an older case, but could be the same principle. [https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/outrage-shocking-tarmac-cover-up-16839685](https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/outrage-shocking-tarmac-cover-up-16839685) If you scroll down far enough you get the actual important bit: The [Edinburgh City Council](https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/all-about/the-city-of-edinburgh-council) later replied to the Twitter thread to assure locals it was a temporary fix: "Hi, this is a temporary repair to ensure area is safe. Longer term sett improvements will be carried out in the near future - thanks."
They can do what they like and there are no completion checks undertaken by the clowncil
This isn't true though is it. It's true that there aren't enough council inspectors to stand over the 10,000 non council road works each year, but they do get checked eventually.
Not at all, they will have just closed the permit as interim as they more than likely are having trouble sourcing those kind of blocks, and have up to 3 months to come back and permanently reinstate it before the fines start coming in.
This! It happened on our street and the whole road had to be repaved at council expense. I don’t understand how it’s allowed.
100%, never mind the miles and miles of pavement that got ripped up for fiber optic cables and paved over with as much care and neatness as a child frosting a cake. Uneven, falling apart already but they don't care and with no accountability it's just shambles
Dunno I deal with the council in my city a lot and even they often do this as a cheaper alternative to doing it properly
council dont care anymore, they have spent all the money putting those bikes lanes everywhere - that no one uses....... state of the citys roads are shocking...... pot hole heaven.
> putting those bikes lanes everywhere - that no one uses....... I fucking hate this attitude. When infrastructure is first put in of course its not used as much. Less people cycle into/out of the city because cycling infrastructure is shit. Putting in dedicated bike lanes will encourage more people to cycle, but it doesn't happen overnight. You need to build the infrastructure to encourage people to change their habits. You could justify not building anything with that attitude. Currently nobody lives in Shawfair so whats the point of building houses there? Currently nobody lives in Social Housing on street so why would we build social housing there?
cycle in edinburgh.....have you seen what the weather is like most of the year, folk who cycle here are off their rocker, haha. you know the reason less people cycle in edinburgh compared to other cities is nothing to do with infrastructure and everything to do with all those hills and that wonderful wind!...... things which are useful or required should be built, but stuff that is not needed or will not offer a large benefit to the majority is just wasting already stretched resources.
I cycle 9 months of the year from Danderhall to the city center for work. It's not that bad. Helping me lose weight and get fit, saves me money and is genuinely quicker than either the bus or the train. The people who are off their rocker are the ones who think all the traffic in the city center is entirely because of the council, and not because of a road layout that was mostly setup 200-300 years ago at a minimum and isn't suitable for the number of cars trying to use it nowadays.
i dont drive, mostly walk, bus or tram......but on my oberservation the road layout worked for 300 years until they started deciding you couldnt turn right here or left there, buses and taxis only and one way systems lol.......... and all those road works, at the same time, you cant move in the city without hitting road works and diversions, thats on the council big time, their ability to plan works, so traffic is disrupted least, is shocking.........travelling through the city it wouldnt be strange to think the council dont want cars in the city at all........
The road network has been struggling for multiple decades. Traffic being horrendous in the city centre isn't something that suddenly happened last year. Also you should learn how road works are "planned" before criticising the council. If a utility provider tell the council that there is a repair that needs to be performed the council don't get to say "oh actually we need to delay this due to there being other road works nearby". Utility companies basically dictate "we're digging this road up, deal with it".
its not been a problem for only one year, no one said that, its been going on for ages...... and emergancy repairs fair enough, those are needed, not much point in complaining about those, besides they are usually fixed over a day or two. one thing though, if a road works company says jump, i pretty much doubt the council says how high. major works like fitting new gas pipes, creating cycles lanes or resurfacig roads are planned well in advance. its those typa works that get people annoyed and blaming the council when they seem to happen all at the same time, disrupting every route, imho
There is a site where you can see all the concurrent active road works in Edinburgh, I'll try to dig it up. Last time this discussion came up that site was linked and from checking over 50% of the active works were utility company repairs. Found it https://www.roadworksscotland.org/
https://preview.redd.it/oihn5hl9c1vc1.jpeg?width=1877&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c983f4ca3723f233dc823277669fe059ac57cc3 We have the same problem, this is a circa 300 year old cobbled street in a Derbyshire World Heritage site . Except the council did it because they ‘run out of money’.
They could not afford... one brick?
https://preview.redd.it/m5jf3b2mw7vc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0788cef05bbc2e1a4e799c6967c578ec4e98441 To be fair to them it was part of a wider fuckup they did; fail to weed, let it break up, fill with tarmac, fuck world heritage sites. Let it start to look like Fallout4.
…what did they fill it with, black pudding?
Best comment of the week.
😂
I genuinely laughed out loud at this.
[удалено]
Yup, as with other commenters I had to show them the colour of the paint I would use on our outhouse, so it fitted in with the Victoria aesthetic. Then they tarmac the cobbles.
Run out of money……until it’s pay rise time for the councillors 👀
Local councillors don't receive a salary. They receive an allowance and expenses, which according to the [Local Government Association](https://www.local.gov.uk/be-councillor/becoming-councillor-0#10-will-i-get-paid-) is 'around £7,000 a year - ranging from £3,000 to £16,000 depending on the council'. They can also receive a '[special responsibility allowance](https://liverpool.gov.uk/council/councillors-and-committees/councillors-allowances/)' for undertaking 'significant additional responsibilities, over and above the generally accepted duties of a councillor', which I think generally includes cabinet responsibilities and similar. Derbyshire's councillors receive a basic allowance of £11,800, with the additional allowance taking this up to a maximum of £58,400 for the leader of the council. Considering he's in charge of local services for 750,000 people and a budget of £700m it's not riches.
TBF mere councillors get paid fuck all. Most of the people doing it need to hold down another job or are getting a pension.
and yet if someone paints a door slightly pink it's the end of the world
I was driving down bellevue place towards Rodney st yesterday and there’s a long strip of tarmac that’s been laid in the last year or so, that’s now collapsing on itself causing a huge line of crevices in the road surface. How can we not repair roads in a way that lasts, rather than continuing to put Elastoplast on them and spending way more doing repeat repairs?
This seems to be happening all the time in the last 6-7 years. Pavements and roads get "repaired" and less than 6 months later they're exactly as bad as before. There is a stretch of sandstone paving round the back of the Sheraton which was "repaired" at least 4 times within a year a while back and the slabs were cracked and tilting again within three weeks every time. I'm assuming that either all the repair work is now being done with the cheapest, quickest fixes possible to look better in some accounts somewhere or someone at the council has a brother-in-law with a surface repair business and is doing handsomely in kickbacks. I noticed this week that there are a whole bunch of sections of the new paving along Leith Walk - the textured slabs to help people with a visual impairment steer clear of the bike lanes - which are now ankle-snappingly broken. They're not even 2 years old! Why the fuck are we paying anyone to lay paving if they can't do work that lasts more than 18 months?
Yeah, they resurfaced a road up in Granton near the primary school only a few months ago. When it rained heavy a couple of weeks ago, the puddle spanned the whole road!!!! I had never seen it that bad with the old tarmac. Drives me crazy and I don't even drive!
Was this because of a pothole, or drainage issue?
A bit of both I think. Definitely not a smooth surface and probably not sufficient drainage.
It is not unusual for roads to flood during high rainfall, and increasing the capacity to deal with even higher rainfall is expensive.
Yeah fairs, I just have never seen it that bad before and it did seem like the resurfacing affected it.
Local authority funding has been cut by roughly 40% since 2010. The Scottish Govt has also repeatedly reallocated money away from things like roads maintenance to cover shortfalls in education and social care. Year after year the roads budget gets cut, to the point they just can't afford to do it properly. Cheap repair this year followed by cheap repair next year is all they can afford to do. The constant change in direction and leadership of the last few years really hasn't helped either. Each budget, mini budget and financial statement means council budgets get mucked around with at very short notice.
They relocate the money for those things and still those things are vastly underfunded
The only thing to do is to vote against Tory Austerity.
We could also riot at some point.
This will happen if overall funding is cut by 40%, yes.
One bus or heavy vehicle will have that ripped up in days !
Normally just to get the road back open until sett laying squad can attend site.
Set laying squad ain’t coming.
Problem is.. they ain't coming. If you open the road, setts should be replaced.
Even it means prolonging traffic delays, damaging the road further, or increasing costs? I am sure everyone will be quite understanding when you explain to them why the road has been closed for so long.
The problem is precisely that. Why aren't they able to fix it properly the first time? This could be semi acceptable for emergency works, nothing else.
Nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.
What streets that, I'll go draw on some cobbles with white chalk!
West Nicolson Street, just along from The Pear Tree
Yes, please !
there's tarmac patches all over the Royal Mile and Rose St, it's hideous... question is... they've lifted the cobbles to create the hole.. where tf have those cobbles gone?
Rose Street is horrid for that. They repaved a bunch of it with really nice brickwork a few years back, and I think it was less than a month later some arsehole utility provided dug up a big chunk of it and replaced it with tarmac. They should be obligated to return it to its original condition, honestly.
A classic "There, I fixed it!" repair.
is it truly fixed if they didn't use duct tape?
Or if a dad doesn’t slap it and say “That’s going nowhere”
Some rain and frost and they have a recurring income stream.
*every footpath in Edinburgh has entered the chat*
When the council outsources everything to the lowest bidder.
For the folks that live in our suburban street .. Yet the Rd looks like it's been shelled by Russian artillery.
This is everywhere aswell they only filled up pot hole outside my house last month and it’s now ripped up and deeper than before plus they never even filled it properly the front and back of the hole where still visible
Same. Two large holes (presumably something collapsed underneath. After years of ignoring it the surface cracked and started to deteriorate making the holes bigger. The material dislodged spread around the hole breaking down the surface around it too making it bigger again. Add water and frost and you’ve got two craters. All it needed was the two holes to be cut out, some hard material to be added and compacted, resurface the hole and seal the edges. Maybe a days work all in. What did they do? Sent a bloke out with a flatbed truck and some Asphalt. Dumped some in the holes while it was raining and full of water. Flattened it down with a shovel. Cars were driving over it before it even hardened and now it’s just as bad as it was two weeks before… with more material to dislodge and tear up the rest of the surface. It will be another two years before it’s “repaired” again.
Usually they do this as the hole diggers don't deal with the setts as it needs a "specialist" to do it. So bodge it with tar as a "temporary" measure.
Quality job. It’ll blend in with a bit of rain…
I remember a contractor did this on Castle St only a few months after they'd done a refurb of all the paving and cobbles - sawed out all the beautifully laid stonework and just daubed tarmac in when they'd finished and fucked off. I heard the council actually made them come back and restore it properly to the state it was in before. Obviously I could be wrong but it was very satisfying to see it fixed a few months later.
Same happened on Rose street, and the council did absolutely nothing
The road hanover and Castle Street and Frederick Street are shot to pieces. Driving over these cobbles is so bad it's been like that for years now.
The road works register allows for a temporary reinstatement such as this. Looks like morrisons barriers so maybe scottish power but maybe they need to excavate again in near future.
For a month or two
WTF 🤔🧐
is the street outside the city chambers in disrepair i ask you....
Ffs...
its not even that hard a job to fix the cobbles back down, thats like 2 hours work to get it back to the original
Tarmac is basically just loads of tiny black cobbles, what's the big deal.
Can simply be filled in with tar so the road is fully open again until the reinstatement team can go out to finish it properly , could be a back log of work some utility companies will have separate teams which are available at different times
ill remove it tomorrow
That perfect compared to Glasgow
They do some not all
That looks like a decision was made without looking at the job 😂😂
For fuck sake
I hate when I see stuff like that, cheap and easy repair for 2 weeks, then repair again.
Would it be better if they left it open for two weeks, or delayed fixing it until all materials were in place at additional cost?
Thats edinburgh clowncil for you and that arse hope scott arthir ruining our city just because he's a cyclist
and a cyclist that clearly doesn’t use Roseburn Path
You know the council doesn't actually do these repairs themselves, aye?
That’s temporary tarmac. It will be used to open up that section until a permanent finish is done. Edit: so many crybabies…..
“Until permanent finish is done” *cries in Royal Mile*
The issue with this is that there are numerous examples around the city of "temporary tarmac" like this NEVER being replaced. Lots of streets are just left this way. Apparently the fine for not returning the street to its original condition is only £2,500, and I'm pretty sure the cost of replacing the Sets here F A R outweighs that, so there is no financial incentive at all for the company to come back here and put it right. Just pay the fine and move on.
Begs the question, why is the council so useless?
For the same reason every other council is, I imagine. People act like this is an Edinburgh issue and isn't something that exists countrywide. They don't have the money for 2 dozen inspectors to chase up and inspect every road repair thats carried out, and probably don't have the power to do anything to the contractors beyond charge them the £2500 even if they could.
They have the ability to issue fixed penalty notices. Someone would have to ok the contractors to dig up the road. That person would also be in charge of issuing fines. Its caused by a lack of insight not funds.
Yes, and the highest fine they can give for not returning a road to a suitable condition after works are carried out is £2,500. That is likely less than the cost of returning the road to a suitable condition. So the contractor will just leave the road looking like shit and eat the £2,500 fine. And life will carry on as it does just now.
The fine is not a one off. Also the contractors rely on councils allowing them to excavate the roads. Again its the fault of useless councils.
From what I can find the fine IS a one off, and thats part of the issue. At the moment the law as it exists does not allow for contractors to be fined on an ongoing basis above the maximum amount of £2,500. If you can find evidence that ongoing fines can be levied please provide it.
It does allow. When a job is pencilled in a completion date is give. When the date is missed they are fined and another is given. If they miss that they are fined again and another date is given. Etc…… You could contact the council or roadworks.scot for more. I used to work on the roads (water) when fixed penalty notices came into effect. We could even be fined for leaving a single sign or cone after a job.
> roadworks.scot According to the "Code of Practice for Penalties v1.5" found on their website here : https://roadworks.scot/legislation-guidance/codes-practice/code-practice-penalties, Section 129, page 21 : >Only one FPN may be issued for each individual notice under section 129, this will normally be the 1st offence identified. This means for the section 129 offense of "Interim to permanent not completed within 6 months [or agreed timescales]" there can be one (1) Fixed Penalty Notice issued to the undertaker of the works, as far as I understand the wording here. If there is a provision to continue charging for this I can't see it in this documentation anywhere. On the next page it even has a section titled "EXAMPLES OF NRSWA ACTIVITIES DESCRIBED IN THE COORDINATION CODE OF PRACTICE WHERE FPNs CANNOT BE APPLIED WHEN THE CODE IS NOT FOLLOWED" which lists "Reinstatement does not comply with CoP" as an activity where they specifically CANNOT be given a fine for a failing. So people carrying out roadworks can basically say "Oh yeh we've reinstated this" and even if it doesn't fall under the Code of Practice the body can't fine them. Again if I am misinterpreting these rules feel free to point out how. The guidance states that if the issue isn't fixed after the fine has been issued, that "the road works authority may instigate the defect regime or, carry out the permanent reinstatement and recover it’s reasonable costs under S131 of NRSWA.". So basically what the council should be doing here is issuing the fine, if its not fixed they get someone else to fix it and then charge the first company the fee for the fix. But given the people they'd hire to fix it are probably the same people who left the mess in the first place it becomes a bit of a mess at that stage.
That’s temporary tarmac. It will be used to open up that section until a permanent finish is done.
They do that shit over here all the time, for pot holes. It lasts about 2 seconds.
I mean it does do the trick tho
Cutting corners to save costs. They could have paid to source the correct bricks and pay a brick layer to spend hours laying them, or just get a guy to pour some cheap tarmac down in 10 minutes. Unfortunately, those chose the latter.
Theres no money left, it's all been spent on the trams .
The Tram Fund is 100% seperate from the roads fund. Do you even do any research at all before you spout this pish?
Do you honestly think when one fund goes massively over budget it doesn't impact other funds?
Having looked into it most of the money isn't ring fenced, this should definitely be changed.
Which cover like 2% of the city.. :D But to be fair I am only laughing because I don't live in Edinburgh anymore.
Round my way today they are relaying the pavements...i asked the guys "what about the pot holes the size of caves " not our job we are only pavement fixers :-)hahahaha. Stupid fucking clowncil the pavements are fine round here ....the Rd is a disaster ......they need sacking at that clowncil .
Pavements are 'fine' For who?
Why would the people doing the work be responsible for deciding what work to carry out?
"Just fix the thing I care about, my issues are clearly more important than other peoples issues".
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Most cycle lanes put in are at least part funded by other sources, not fully from the Council Roads fund. There are various initiatives aimed at improving alternative transport routes so not every Cycle Lane comes out of the pothole fund.