General Chat

does anyone know why its necessary to cone off a road for over a mile from the actual site of a problem, surely cone-ing off on roundabouts to one lane isn't essential? as the traffic diverges any way?............

Time was, an old codger with a shovel and wheelbarrow would be employed to clear the ditches

....and while they're clearing the ditches, they could report potholes and clear the shrubbery from road signs.

Now it's probably 3 different departments/contractors with extremely expensive equipment that manage to block the road, if they're ever employed :-|

Fields often are not fields any more, hedges have gone and I dare say ditches filled to make massive acre-ages of arable land....

Used to be the norm for farmers to have ditches around their fields to drain them, but I think, I may be wrong, the European Union's Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) saw that practice disappear in many areas :-(

Never mind getting the school leavers benefits give 'em a shovel! ;-) ;-)

I think they are people who thought they would like to move to the country or people who have never had to have any dealings with ditches.

Probably working on the same wavelength as the people who made a mess as the Somerset Levels. :-D

It sounds like that parish council is going downhill too ;-) :-)

Basic rule....... Water Runs Downhill!!

:-|

I think they could spend a little more time consulting maps and rather less consulting reports that promise grants.

It just seems so logical to me that drainage would take the shortest possible route to the rife, which it would have done for hundreds of years, rather than some sort of complicated route through an estate of horticultural holdings that were constructed I the 1930s.

Classic case of regular maintenance not being done to save money.
We have a similar problem but ours is made worse by the council who spent shed loads of our money on drainage for the local football pitches. It used to lay on the pitch for days now it runs off in minutes and the local stream can't cope!

We have to nag the highways to clear the gutter drains, the water board to clear the sewer that has not been cleaned in living memory and the environmental agency to keep the stream clear! While the council bathes in glory for giving such good support to sports amenities and constantly permits more and more extensions and new builds to connect to the existing infrastructure!

There should be one overall body that co-ordinates the lot you just say we have flooding and they get it sorted!! :-| :-| :-|

I have always lived in this village, no, not for the entire life of the village but for the entire life of me! Twenty years ago I stopped being a parish councillor because I was starting a different employment and thought I might not have the time to devote to it (I thought I might be going inside for not paying my poll tax as well).

Yesterday I rang the current chairman of the parish council who says he has lived in the village a long time (twenty- five years).

For the last few years our road has flooded at the end when it rains so as to be impassable. It also floods outside our houses now but it never did when we moved into this house from one down the road fifty years ago.

I know the parish council has a working party to get this flooding problem rectified and I wondered if they were aware that the rough ground opposite our houses is actually a silted pond. It was still a bit of a pond when we moved here but I have never brought it to their attention because I didn't want to land the man across the road with a bill until I had asked him if it was his, which it is not.

Not only did they not know that the pond was there, they didn't even know there were ditches at this end of the road, the end between the impassable flooding and the stream that runs to the sea, and thought the water ran in a completely different direction, in fact, I don't think they are even quite sure where it goes once it has gone round that corner over there!