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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Town halls, responsible for more than 95 per cent of the road network, fixed 2 million potholes last year, according to LGA estimates. However, local authorities will receive £165m less capital funding from the Government to fix roads this year than in 2010.

The warning comes as highways officers up and down the country assess the damage caused to roads last month during the coldest December in 100 years.

The Local Government Association has warned that councils face a double whammy of crumbling roads and swingeing cuts to their road repair budgets.

From April, the Department for Transport will be cutting £65m from the money it gives to councils to fund road repairs.

Last year, the government gave councils an extra £100m to fix potholes following extreme winter weather.


Tags for Forum Posts: potholes, public spending cuts

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"The great advantage of Berkeleyan potholes," Dr Johnson remarked to me on one of our late evening perambulations along Wightman Road, "is that I can't stub my toe on them. Just imagine if they were convex rather than concave, we'd all be cripples."

 

Boswell's Life of Johnson.

What if the council only fixed the main roads to allow for commerce and through routes. As the side roads deteriorate traffic would slow down and avoid it. The busier side roads would notice this effect soonest and the effect would spread outwards to other roads. Overall you'd get quieter side roads at the cost of having to drive carefully to get to your home.
(Waits for rotten tomatoes to be thrown)
All the roads on the left going up Muswell Hill have been "purchased" by residents who had them gated because they'd become a cut-through and they now maintain the roads, or not in this case.

Alan Stanton has corrected me on this issue.

The roads on the Rookfield Estate are privately-owned, unadopted roads. it comes from the particular history of this part of Muswell Hill.

He also mentions that they look quite nice and well maintained. Which I have to agree, they do. However, if St James's Lane was open to traffic it would soon become a cut through for the commercial traffic currently using Muswell Hill, in much the same way that my road is a cut through for the commercial traffic that would otherwise have to use Turnpike Lane. I wonder what it would look like then?

These potholes are not caused by general road traffic. They are caused by commercial use of Haringey's roads by heavy goods vehicles. Before the proliferation of 7.5t limits we did not have the massive number of 7490kg trucks "allowed" to use our residential streets to beat traffic on main roads. If one-way ladder streets were two way we'd lose the odd wing mirror but the council would not be having to reseal them every 5 years or so.

 

I take it all back about St James's Lane, it's the first road that's NOT gated going up Muswell Hill. It could be a cut through for commercial traffic but it's a bit windy and... two-way, so it's not.

I live on Wightman Road and cycled home a couple of weeks ago and they were repairing a manhole cover/pothole at the top of Hewitt road that I live very near and made a nasty rattling noise as traffic went over it.  It was about 9pm and the guy was at great pains to tell me how they were called out as an emergency - he had been out since 8am but was happy to do this as it was something like £225 each per hour for overtime and he was pretty happy with that.  I was surprised it was an emergency as had been like that for a while and after they had left it still rattled. Anyhow woke up on Saturday morning to the sound of drilling and they were outside digging up the said repair and re-doing!!!! False economies and all that.

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