A questionnaire arrived in the post last week addressed to the occupier. From Ipsos MORI , the market research company, on behalf of Suffolk County Council Highways Department - Col's employer for 35 years.
Most of it seemed very irrelevant to me here - Pavements - what pavements? Street lights - none, bus services - Ha!
But then there was a section asking if things had improved or not in the last year and I thought - that's interesting, maybe they are not happy with the big private company that currently do all the repairs......or not......on Suffolks roads.
It must be 10 years since the men who had been used to working for the council, knew their area, were based locally suddenly found they were working for a huge private company who had no idea of the area, sent people from the east of the county to work in the west and vise-versa and then found they had days with no work......we heard it all from the men that Col used to supervise.
So I was able to put my tick in the Very Dissatisfied boxes. There are potholes everywhere, road markings have vanished in many places, never see a road sweeper or a gully-sucker now and road signs are filthy, falling to bits and never repaired.
Hope it helps - everything was so much better when it was done 'in house'.
I did wonder why I'd been selected to receive a questionnaire, but maybe it was because I contacted the Rights of Way department when a tree came down blocking the footpath.
Back Tomorrow
Sue
Let's hope your conscientious attitude prompts a positive response.
ReplyDeleteI expect a lot of people wont even bother to reply!
DeleteHopefully, enough people will respond the same way that they get off their backsides and do something about it. It needed to be said, didn't it?
ReplyDeletexx
I liked ticking all the dissatisfied boxes!
DeleteAH! NOW I know what happened here a few years back then as our Council must have done the same. We had had the same "road gang" who knew every inch of our lanes, which ditches would need clearing after a storm, cleared all the weeds on the bridge (Eira, who lived by the bridge, would never have let them NOT do that regularly!!) Overnight they were taken off and put to work on the Llandovery-Builth stretch of road, which they didn't know. Now our lanes are grassy in the middle, and there is a bit of the riverbank down by the bridge which has totally collapsed taking a couple of feet of road with it and a big crack down the middle. THAT would have been noted and dealt with long before it got to that stage.
ReplyDeleteI hope that your questionnaire is noted - and that there are a lot more filled in in a similar fashion.
Tam used to live in Sheffield, which is (was) a lovely leafy city. Then the Council employed a company to look after the trees and as you probably saw on the news, they decided the easiest way to do that economically was to cut most of them down! Words failed me but we were very angry and as you can imagine, so were the residents.
I don't things will change much - the council will be even more short of money now
DeleteDo any of your other readers find that the 'in-house/contracting out' thing goes in cycles? Contracting out appears to save money, contractors cut-corners to make a profit, council says 'we don't need to make a profit so we'll bring it in-house', Council needs to cut costs and some bright spark suggests contracting out various services....
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you are right - who knows what next - there's no money anywhere
DeleteI think it is the same everywhere Sue. I can look back to the days whn I was a child in the thirties and forties when our village had a road man who was a villager. If anything went wrong - drain blockage, ditch blockage, pothole - you just went and knocked on Joe Hardy's door and it was done. Of course when the huge increase in traffic and the sophistication in materials it can't be done like this any more. But surely there could be a happy medium.
ReplyDeleteCol was really glad to pack up working for the council in 2012 - his job had changed so much - for the worse
DeleteEverything you say applies here, too. A while ago, Dorset council actually said that it was policy *not* to repair minor roads. They then spent a fortune (and closed the road for six months) on a pointless roundabout nobody wanted or needed.
ReplyDeleteAbout three years ago, I was trapped inside my own boundary for three days while the road was up for water repairs. The gang doing the work had come down from Yorkshire!
We country dwellers really are second class citizens but I'd still rather be where I am than in a town.
Yes I'd rather live here than in town even if it does mean driving over 2 miles of really bad roads to get the the A road which they spend a bit more money on
DeleteThe same goes for the NHS with their domestic services. It never was the same at the pyschiatric hospital where I worked when they stopped employing their own cleaners. Gone were the friendly chatty 'friends' who also had time and patience with the patients and in came the cleaners who didn't have a smile or time for anyone including the patients. Never the same.
ReplyDeleteSupposed to be saving money - but I just can't see how that works
DeleteThe roads are one of the things I am really going to miss when we move back to England. Here in North Wales the roads are maintained to a brilliant standard by local teams and there is ongoing work happening all the time. The drain clearing machines come round before and after bad forecasted weather to check the state of the soakaways, and even when you drive to the top of a hill/small mountain its not unusual to find a well maintained tarmacked road.
ReplyDeleteIt's quite the opposite when I'm out and about on Mum's Cheshire roads, potholes, lumps and bumps and huge puddles crossing roads, while she sits in the passenger seat apologising to my cars suspension.
Well done to the North Wales road men!
DeleteSuffolk is slightly different to some counties because they have contracted out all local authority services. Norfolk still has drain cleaning machines for instance, and small teams going round mending potholes and a good pothole direct line for reporting to and it works. Norfolk roads are pretty good and Summer resurfacing has just started.
ReplyDeleteResurfacing is going on round about - but now they just tar and chip over everything without mending any problems first. So in the next downpour the rain just makes puddles in the same places and after a while everything is as bad as it was before.
DeleteJust coming back in to say a big thank you for the quilting binding too which arrived just a few minutes ago. I can see that I will use it and it will be very handy!
ReplyDeletexx
Oh good, I had no idea what it was
DeleteLocal is better even in road repair. They have a vested interest
ReplyDeleteI think you are right - its all down to money
DeleteIt's nice to think our opinion matters to others, isn't it? I hope this means they are seriously considering the need to improve things.
ReplyDeleteIt's good that you and others have a chance to give your opinion. I hope it helps!
ReplyDeleteCoincidence or what, I had exactly the same form fall through my letter box today here in Cornwall, my neighbors also, so perhaps it's a national survey they are doing, Considering I like a lot of people have not been out of my driveway for the past 16 weeks, how do they expect me to answer. Another waste of money or perhaps it will do some good if enough people tick the boxes truthfully,.
ReplyDeleteSame process has happened in Australia Sue and now our small local roads are always falling apart.Cheaper is rarely better,but the rural vote is not large enough nor visible enough to count!
ReplyDeleteI often tick an obscure box
ReplyDeleteJust out if devilment
I'm not sure 2020 has improved anything for anyone!
ReplyDeleteI hope that your answers make the company take stock of how they do things.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Hopefully the roads in your area become better. I was going to the coast on Wed and there were different signs and blinking lights on side of road where there was an intersection. Hwy 22 goes on and at intersection, vehicles on side roads have stop signs. I liked that idea. A few rough areas, even tho the pavement is good, it's just the way the area is by a hill. Glad you are returning your survey. Take care!
ReplyDelete