council fail

[rynnor]

My 3 penneth:

Grit bins are great but considering I bought 3 sacks of grit and after a few days of snow just clearing n gritting a tiny section of path n driveway to be down to 1/4 of a bag left I dont think people have much conception of how many bins would be needed for prolonged snowfall.

Shovel n broom are your friend in this - thats what they do in really cold countries.

Additionally - even sections I pre-gritted heavily (far more heavily than is possible on even main roads) had snow settle on them to the depth of some inches so grits no panacea.

Tbh gritting roads is great for frosty roads but not great for snow - we really need to make a shift to snow ploughs to deal with this kind of weather.

 

[Trem]

Well if one of her neighbours is to do it, or you, then why not just go to the builder's merchant, buy a bag of rocksalt, and do it anyway? Its cheap enough.

Do you really want your council to spend an extra few million quid on the staff and resources to grit every single road and every single patch of pavement in the constituency, for the sake of a few days of snow and ice?

If you do, then perhaps you shouldn't be moaning at me. Perhaps you should be moaning at your local councillors. Maybe the council should also provide drinking fountains, in case theres a drought and your nan keels over from sunstroke on her way to get a paper.

Her pavement around her flat is lethal, that is the councils fault, if she dies of heat stroke that is her fault you see? Do you see that? Pavements are what *we* pay for to be useable, *we* pay the council to keep them safe, when the shit hits the fan the councils do not want to know because our money has already been spent on metal tree's and statues of Stanley Matthews.

My nan lives on the first floor, she is partially sighted, mostly deaf and struggles to walk but she still cleans all the stairs in the flats and she still makes a life for herself, it isn't like I am saying she is a quitter or a moaner.

 

[Tom]

Fucking hell, is this where your nan lives?

YouTube- CAPSTICK COMES HOME - Tony Capstick

 

[Bugz]

Trem since your nan is obivously a special case, why don't you buy her a big 25kg bag of rock salt or whatever and just ask her neighbour to do it for her as and when she needs it?

With all due respect, I don't want to be paying more council tax for a man to deliever grit to roads on off-chance an old lady such as your nan may need it.

 

[00dave]

Really, to expect a council to have a fleet of gritting lorries sat waiting, with the men to drive them, and thousands of gritting bins dotted around a constituency, its just daft. Complete waste of money, for what amounts to usually no more than 2 weeks of snow per year.

I used to work on a snow and ice team. The system is usually a colour coded state ie, green, red, amber. Green is fine, no worries, amber standby, red get your ass out of bed and start clearing some snow. There is a fairly accurate weather forecast that gives you a good heads up as to when the snow and ice season would start.

 

[Scouse]

When I was growing up, it got icy, you fell over, tough shit. All part of the fun. Nobody thought to blame the council. Break your leg? NHS will fix that, for nothing.

I'm one of the people that people keep telling Tom he won't find.



Just to be unambiguous:

 

[old.Osy]

Trem since your nan is obivously a special case, why don't you buy her a big 25kg bag of rock salt or whatever and just ask her neighbour to do it for her as and when she needs it?

With all due respect, I don't want to be paying more council tax for a man to deliever grit to roads on off-chance an old lady such as your nan may need it.

This is why you can't have nice things.

 

[Trem]

Trem since your nan is obivously a special case, why don't you buy her a big 25kg bag of rock salt or whatever and just ask her neighbour to do it for her as and when she needs it?

With all due respect, I don't want to be paying more council tax for a man to deliever grit to roads on off-chance an old lady such as your nan may need it.

Because her neighbours are scum.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Break your leg? NHS will fix that, for nothing.

Free at the point of service maybe, but as DaGaffer has said here recently nothing is free.

Yesterday morning we had rain on already frozen roads, within half an hour all but the main roads were impassable, and every pavement was a death trap. Sharon and I took the decision not to go to work till it was safe, we were an hour and a half late. By then the hospital was in melt down. At one point yesterday the ambulance service had over 200 calls that it was unable to get to.

Almost all the people I x-rayed yesterday had fractures, this is unusual, mostly it is about 20%. All those fractures will cost the Trust money, the impact of theatre time lost for planned operations etc will end up costing 100's of thousands over the next few weeks. The impact of that one morning will rumble on and on (anyone had any experience of a fracture clinic? Busy at the best of times but over the next couple of months just imagine it).

All this has come at a time when our trust is trying to save 3% of our budget for the second year in a row, and ahead of a year where we have to save a further 10%! How will this be paid? Loss of jobs and services. Your broken leg may be fixed for free, but at what cost down the line?

The stupidest thing is that the ice was gone within a couple of hours (as predicted by the weather forecast), People took stupid and unnecessary risks just to 'walk the dog' or 'finish the Christmas shopping' when a couple more hours in a warm house would have kept them safe.

RB

 

[Chilly]

Seasonal peaks are factored into nhs budgets, no?

Anyway, it is all free, effectively. UK salaries and costs are adjusted to take into account the fact that everyone pays a wedge of their income straight away anyway.

 

[Darthshearer]

The roads have been cleared in Leeds, its the pavements that are leathal. They should have people who are on community service gritting the pavements.

 

[Bugz]

Anyway, it is all free, effectively. UK salaries and costs are adjusted to take into account the fact that everyone pays a wedge of their income straight away anyway.

Come again?

 

[Chilly]

Come again?

As someone entering the workforce for the first time, I was very bitter about paying loads of cash to the govt every month. Then I realised that taxes are all factored into salary anyway so it all magically works out. The effect being that stuff like the nhs and roads are, basically, free.

 

[MYstIC G]

Well if one of her neighbours is to do it, or you, then why not just go to the builder's merchant, buy a bag of rocksalt, and do it anyway? Its cheap enough.

Do you really want your council to spend an extra few million quid on the staff and resources to grit every single road and every single patch of pavement in the constituency, for the sake of a few days of snow and ice?

If you do, then perhaps you shouldn't be moaning at me. Perhaps you should be moaning at your local councillors. Maybe the council should also provide drinking fountains, in case theres a drought and your nan keels over from sunstroke on her way to get a paper.

You really are a prick sometimes Tom.

Round my way we had grit bins for years until the council removed them, big ugly green things. Now they're gone and the council don't grit the roads.

Now, as for "main roads... blah blah" that's a proportional service and is bullshit. Accidents can occur on any road and they should all be done where the responsibility of the local authority / highway agency. By your logic the council has done fuck all on my street, so surely I should get a discount? But then we all know it doesn't work like that. Local authorities may be full of good people but they all work the same way "pay what we tell you and only get what you're given" end of. Besides which, most people I know have to get across the pavement to get to their car, so maybe it would be good to clear those, no?

I think you'll find what Trem is saying, very simply and very correctly, is that it costs fuck all and does nobody any harm, to leave some boxes on the side of the road full of grit. It costs fuck all for a neighbour to help an old lady by getting out a shovel and throwing some of the stuff down. It costs us the chance of a decent society if we all act like you.

What takes time and effort is dealing with pricks like you who've always got a better idea or know best.

As for "buy it yourself" go tell that to a family under the poverty line.

 

[Bugz]

As someone entering the workforce for the first time, I was very bitter about paying loads of cash to the govt every month. Then I realised that taxes are all factored into salary anyway so it all magically works out. The effect being that stuff like the nhs and roads are, basically, free.

Government is running a large deficit currently.

So infact, the NHS etc. are costing us a lot of money and things don't magically work out.

2009/2010 social benefits for example, will out-do the revenue gained from income tax.

Of course you also have that marginal utility loss from the fact governments spend a lot of your money on shit like MP expenses & schemes that fail to meet their aims. If the use of your pound coin can gain you more utility than the giving of it away to the government then you are actually incurring a net-loss.

But in normal years, yes you are right - I guess you can deem them as free.

 

[Tom]

You really are a prick sometimes Tom.

Round my way we had grit bins for years until the council removed them, big ugly green things. Now they're gone and the council don't grit the roads.

Now, as for "main roads... blah blah" that's a proportional service and is bullshit. Accidents can occur on any road and they should all be done where the responsibility of the local authority / highway agency. By your logic the council has done fuck all on my street, so surely I should get a discount? But then we all know it doesn't work like that. Local authorities may be full of good people but they all work the same way "pay what we tell you and only get what you're given" end of. Besides which, most people I know have to get across the pavement to get to their car, so maybe it would be good to clear those, no?

I think you'll find what Trem is saying, very simply and very correctly, is that it costs fuck all and does nobody any harm, to leave some boxes on the side of the road full of grit. It costs fuck all for a neighbour to help an old lady by getting out a shovel and throwing some of the stuff down. It costs us the chance of a decent society if we all act like you.

What takes time and effort is dealing with pricks like you who've always got a better idea or know best.

As for "buy it yourself" go tell that to a family under the poverty line.

I know perfectly well what Trem is saying, and I disagree with him, and consider him wrong on this point. Just as I consider your argument to be a load of hand-wringing cock.

 

[Scouse]

I've never known a council do side roads, never mind pavements.

It's fucking snow, for christ sake. It happens so rarely in this country it's hardly worth worrying about. So what if old people have to stay inside for a week? That's pretty much always been the case anyway and it's what "family" is for. Go shopping for your nan!

Plus, as has been pointed out, grit is pretty much ineffective with any reasonable amount of snow anyway.

 

[00dave]

It's fucking snow, for christ sake. It happens so rarely in this country it's hardly worth worrying about.

The earthquake we had a couple of years back was even rarer but the roads still had to be repaired afterwards.

Plus, as has been pointed out, grit is pretty much ineffective with any reasonable amount of snow anyway.

right now as I write this I'm looking outside at a good 2 inches of compacted snow and ice that has been sat on the road for nearly a week now. That wouldn't be there if the road had been gritted and salted. If you can prevent the snow from settling then it won't become a problem later on.

 

[Lollie]

The roads have been cleared in Leeds, its the pavements that are leathal. They should have people who are on community service gritting the pavements.

this tbfh, they can lick the pavements clean

 

[rynnor]

right now as I write this I'm looking outside at a good 2 inches of compacted snow and ice that has been sat on the road for nearly a week now.

Get shovelling! I always clear the road n paths past my house - wonder what it would be like if we all did this...

 

[Trem]

Get shovelling! I always clear the road n paths past my house - wonder what it would be like if we all did this...

We can only wish, problem is we still need grit to stop it icing over after we have cleared it.

Anyway fuck it, my nan is here all day tomorrow and Samm has just revealed that my nan has said she will have to take her teeth out to eat the dinner because her gums are sore............oh happy days

 

[Aoami]

i thought this thread was quite funny until i fell over twice on the way home from my xmas eve beer run and smashed a bottle of stella

 

[00dave]

Get shovelling! I always clear the road n paths past my house - wonder what it would be like if we all did this...

Don't have a shovel, only moved in 2 weeks ago. Also I have a job to go to, eight hours with a one and a half hour daily commute that has become a 3 hour daily commute this past week. I do that to pay my bleeding taxes so some other king cnut can clear my path.

 

[rynnor]

We can only wish, problem is we still need grit to stop it icing over after we have cleared it.

If you clear off the snow household salt does for the ice - works best if you walk around on it a bit.

 

[Scouse]

The earthquake we had a couple of years back was even rarer but the roads still had to be repaired afterwards

But it's a rare occasion that we don't bother preparing for?

Are you saying we should have standby earthquake teams knocking around on the slim chance we hit more than 4 on the richter scale?

 

[Scouse]

Don't have a shovel, only moved in 2 weeks ago. Also I have a job to go to, eight hours with a one and a half hour daily commute that has become a 3 hour daily commute this past week. I do that to pay my bleeding taxes so some other king cnut can clear my path.

What??! You want your path cleared now??!

 

[Raven]

Well I went out with a shovel and a brush and cleared my path and a 3 foot section of pavement. I live opposite the pub so had a nice clear ice free journey home.

 

[TdC]

Well I went out with a shovel and a brush and cleared my path and a 3 foot section of pavement. I live opposite the pub so had a nice clear ice free journey home.

everybody wins!

 

[MYstIC G]

I know perfectly well what Trem is saying, and I disagree with him, and consider him wrong on this point. Just as I consider your argument to be a load of hand-wringing cock.

No surprises there then. Maybe for new years you can resolve to disagree with him without the sarcasm and we'd all be better off.

 

[Jimmy]

The pavements around Leeds including the centre are fucking leathal. Its beyond a joke.

the ones at the top of leeds are awful