This links to a radio clip about a one-man campaign to improve it in Cornwall:
tinyurl.com/zx3c8oq
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Good man. We keep paying and the services (sic) are not being delivered.
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NFC as we say down here - Normal for Cornwall :)
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But your road surfaces are far better than Devon. Fact.
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I must admit when I used to take my Subaru up to Ashburton Motors, and drive their loan car down to Totnes for the day, I found the state of the roads literally shocking.
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I suspect that this is pretty usual in all parts of the country, not just Cornwall - I certainly see it here in Suffolk.
As a student (some 45 years ago), I used to spend my summer vacs working for Leics County Council Highways Dept and I have a fair idea of what has happened. In our district, we had a gulley (drain) sucker vehicle that was in permanent use operating on a cycle round the region. The gullies were kept clear; any that subsequently became blocked or missed were quickly dealt with when identified. This work was done 'in house' and not contracted out. I suspect that this work has been cut to save costs.
On rural roads where there were no gullies, a narrow trench (known to us as a 'grip') was dug through the grass verge into the ditch running along a field edge. If we had completed a project lasting several days (e.g. kerb-laying) and had a spare half-day, we'd be sent 'gripping' i.e. clearing out grips with spade/shovel/mattock. Nowadays, much of the road maintenance work is put out to contract so there are no 'spare' half- days to go 'gripping' - and roads are flooded.
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They're Grips to us too. Been there done that.
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Never heard the name Grips but they're used on the lanes round here and on sections of the A5(T).
Council and Highways Agency are pretty good about keeping them in shape. We still get flooding though, clay soil soon gets waterlogged an the drains simply fill up. Water covers roads to depths way beyond the wading capacity of a conventional car. Usually happens on 2-3 days a year.
Not sure anything short of pipes/pumps could shift that
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Lady who worked for me for eight years died at the age of 58 as a result of gullies not being cleared in our area.
The gullies overflowed, the road flooded , then froze and her car hit the ice and then a tree killing her instantly.....that is not a day I will ever forget .
Who knows what might have been if the gullies had been emptied...
RIP Pat...
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Road drainage - MD
