That road they spent all last year digging up and resurfacing...

[Sysman]

... on the way to work.

Well, they've just dug up one side of it again this morning.

[gingerjedi]

Where?

Ever since they built the 2nd severn crossing the M4 on the Welsh side has been in a permanent state of repair, I've never seen anyone working on it either.

We need to get some Germans or French in to do the job properly.

[lilelvis2000]

Some roads around here have been dug up so many times there is very little original road surface to speak of.

When I lived in Canada local authorities were heavily criticised for resurfacing a road only to have it dug up a year later. They finally clued up and now try and move projects up so they can be done simultaneously. I think they get the utilities on board as well.

But it seems that in the UK utility companies can pretty well dig as they like and are not too bothered with trying to synchronise to the council's planning. Dunno who's fault that is.

[SueEllen]

But it seems that in the UK utility companies can pretty well dig as they like and are not too bothered with trying to synchronise to the council's planning. Dunno who's fault that is.

Part of the problem in the UK is ageing infra-structure.

For example in my area Thames Water spent a year digging up and replacing the water mains to stop us flooding the people further down hill.

Then when they finished two months later you could smell gas. So off course National Grid came along to dig up the road and repair the gas pipes. Unfortunately they managed to screw up the electricity cables so we kept having black outs. So EDF had to come along and sort that out. However they had to do their repairs in different sections of the road.....

[Sysman]

Where?

Ever since they built the 2nd severn crossing the M4 on the Welsh side has been in a permanent state of repair, I've never seen anyone working on it either.

We need to get some Germans or French in to do the job properly.

This is in Switzerland. I think the problem here is that they are perfectionists.

Back to the UK, I remember a road they started widening when I was still at school. 5 years after I left school it was still full of roadworks.

10 years after that they were still working on it. By the time they got around to finishing a bypass to one of the villages further up that route, there was little point to it, and it was always empty. Other roads had been constructed.

I did wonder if there was some corruption involved there with the seemingly never ending contracts.

[Spacecadet]

... on the way to work.

Well, they've just dug up one side of it again this morning.

A road near me is in the process of being resurfaced for the 3rd time in 12 months. The contractors managed to cock it up on the first two attempts.

There is a section of the M60 which has also been in a near constant state of repair due to mystery cracks appearing in the road surface

[darmstadt]

We need to get some Germans or French in to do the job properly.

Not too sure about that. The A5 between Frankfurt and Darmstadt was up most of last year, ready just before winter and is now up again. The main tramline through Darmstadt is always getting dug up because either the contractors keep ******* it up or the council decide they want something else done.

[Clippy]

Some roads around here have been dug up so many times there is very little original road surface to speak of.

When I lived in Canada local authorities were heavily criticised for resurfacing a road only to have it dug up a year later. They finally clued up and now try and move projects up so they can be done simultaneously. I think they get the utilities on board as well.

But it seems that in the UK utility companies can pretty well dig as they like and are not too bothered with trying to synchronise to the council's planning. Dunno who's fault that is.

Wasn't there an initiative put in place several years ago whereas utilities, when submitting their requests to local authorities, had to specify how long the works would take. i.e. include a specific end date.

If they went over this, they were fined for each day they over ran.

Solution: The utilities would over specify an end date so, for example, a piece of work that would take 3 months would be submitted as requiring 6 months.

[OwlHoot]

The main tramline through Darmstadt is always getting dug up because either the contractors keep ******* it up ...

One can begin to understand where Stalin was coming from, sending contractors to Siberia for ten years in that situation, or just shooting them.

I think they had to redo a stretch of the M25 between junctions 12 and 14, round the M3 bit, a few years ago because some monkey of a contractor used substandard tar or something.

[EternalOptimist]

Thats nothing. some retard has just dropped a 500 kg festering turd in a street near where I work. I suppose we could treat it as a roundabout