Nick Jones Posted January 28 Posted January 28 Somerset Council is skint….. not new news, but relevant. Also the weather has been bad (awful even) with especially torrential rain on Sunday leading to serious flooding. If you been seeing reports of flooding in places like South Petherton, Shepton Beauchamp, Ilminster and Chard, they are all with 8 miles of here. AFAIK, no house in this village has been fully flooded though several have had some water in. The main north/south road through the village was flooded for a time though where it crosses our “brook”(it’s a big brook but not really a river normally). Several cars drowned in it with one being left abandoned for nearly 24 hours. Some people! The big problem though is landslides. North of the village the road goes up quite steeply through a deep, narrow cutting. 2/3 of the way up there’s a Z bend where it crosses the Fosse Way, (now a small lane). On that bend and further up the hill there have been a series of fairly small landslides obstructing one carriageway. This happens most years to some extent, but is worst I’ve seen this time. Normally we get temporary traffic lights (sometimes for weeks on end) but for some reason this isn’t (so far) deemed possible this time. As a result of this the road was closed on Sunday night. It’s passable with care though so people (me included) have been sneaking through “well warned and careful” and 48 hours have passed without incident. This is a former A-road, now declassified, but still, unfortunately for the village, a major through-route that carries several thousand vehicles a day normally. There is no plausible alternative to the north. It’s possible to go west along the Fosse Way, but that’s single track, thoroughly pot-holed and currently flooded in several places and takes ages to get anywhere you might want to go. Detours to the south are 8.5 miles minimum and…. The road south is technically closed too by another landslide, though also passable with care. With my councillor hat on I spoke to the local highways guy. He’s a nice fella trying his best in impossible circumstances. I wanted him to clear the road. Thursday morning he reckoned. You need to put some lights up then! No can do, too close to roundabout. He and I profoundly disagree on this, but his preferred solution is for the locals to keep sneaking around the road closed sign “well-warned and cautious” and hopefully through traffic “discouraged (no chance!). The police don’t care apparently …. Except they do today and this evening, having snuck through some not quite tightly spaced enough cones at the top of the hill (Sooty is quite narrow by modern standards), I came cautiously around the corner to be faced by a police person triumphantly placing a barrier in my path. Bollocks!
RogerH Posted January 29 Posted January 29 As a local Councillor you could have told the officer that you were assessing the road in order to report back to your residents. Roger 1
Nick Jones Posted January 29 Author Posted January 29 We had a fairly frank exchange of views. The county council, who closed the road, are not abiding by their own guidelines with regard to signage, notifications and signing alternate routes, not that there are any viable alternatives anyway. It was complete mayhem with cars coming up from the south basically being forced to turn west onto the Fosseway, a single track lane in poor repair and at least two quite deeply flooded areas. Some of those drivers may still be trying to find their way home now! I did ask if they really thought they were helping the situation, which they didn’t much like as they very obviously were not! They let me past in the end after checking my details/legality in a marked manner. It was very noticeable, three days now after the “weather”, that in Dorset crews have been out and cut fallen branches, cleared clogged drains and even scraped up some small land slips -I even passed a crew working this morning, whereas in Somerset all that’s happened is they’ve flicked out a few signs (some of which are police ones not highways) for the more major hazards and nothing more. Very unimpressive. Though what really irritates is that the farmer whose land the major slips have fallen off lives just 1/4 mile from the scene and owns a Manitou with a huge loading bucket. One pass from that would clear the whole problem and he could dump his own soil back in his own field….. He hasn’t/won’t though and apparently highways won’t ask him, even though they usually claim it’s his responsibility! I know that another rather larger slide just a few miles away was cleared by the nearest farmer within an hour of it happening!
JohnD Posted January 29 Posted January 29 (edited) Don't know about landslips, but in Devon in the 80s the County had contracts with all the local farmers. If there was a heavy snowfall - not usual in Devon, but heavy when it happened - they phoned the farmer, and he got out his tractor/digger and cleared the road from his farm, then those to the main road, and so on. Was effective, as the farmers could do little else after snow, apart from livestock, and they were paid for their time! I've mentioned how the "Weather" has led to the Bridgewater Canal collapse, but I saw this morning an online appeal from the Canal Trust , for another canal where subsidence threatens collapse, and flooding. We are truly doomed! Edited January 29 by JohnD
mattius Posted January 29 Posted January 29 If the council are anything like round here, they would let him clear it, then sue him for damaging the road in the process of clearing it. Too much red tape these days, pesky bureaucrats
Escadrille Ecosse Posted January 30 Posted January 30 20 hours ago, JohnD said: I've mentioned how the "Weather" There has been rather a lot of 'weather' recently. Nick is floating in Somerset. Looks pretty dire. We had the much heralded red storm warning last Friday. Phone going off and all that. Quite strange really as until about 10 am there was no indication whatsoever as to what was about to hit us. Then boom. Came in from the East and swung round to the SW over the afternoon. Fortunately with very little rain. Fairly significant carnage. 87mph recorded in Glasgow, strongest since the New Year storm in 2012 when we had a peak of 102mph recorded at the refinery in Grangemouth. Lots of trees down and quite a bit of building damage about the place, though a lot less than in 2012. EE towers came off relatively lightly. A big chunk of fascia and lap board off the W gable and some damage to the facisa on the E. Happened before, as it is not the greatest design. This lot was done professionally about 15 years ago (it survived 2012) but I had replaced bits of the original at least three times before then. Horrible job without scaffolding 30ft up over the edge. Had the man round yesterday to look at replacement with a better system. No more working off ropes for me.
JohnD Posted January 30 Posted January 30 I very much sympathise, Colin! After working only six feet up with my hands over my head on the PIR lamp over my garage door, I had to go and lie down. As for Craig's exploits three miles up...... John 2
RogerH Posted January 31 Posted January 31 Hi John, having read about you 6 feet off the ground with your hands over your head I too had to lie down for while. Roger 1
JohnD Posted January 31 Posted January 31 But Roger! You're the one featured in the latest Courier - and on the cover, no less! - driving thousands of feet above precipitous Alpine passes! JOhn
Escadrille Ecosse Posted January 31 Posted January 31 2 hours ago, RogerH said: Hi John, having read about you 6 feet off the ground with your hands over your head I too had to lie down for while. Roger 1 hour ago, JohnD said: But Roger! You're the one featured in the latest Courier - and on the cover, no less! - driving thousands of feet above precipitous Alpine passes! JOhn Fame. And some of those roads are rather vertiginous!
JohnD Posted January 31 Posted January 31 My apologies!! I thought I recognised your surname, and the car's colour and the Memsahib's hat matched! John
rogerguzzi Posted January 31 Posted January 31 7 minutes ago, JohnD said: My apologies!! I thought I recognised your surname, and the car's colour and the Memsahib's hat matched! John Hello John That Roger is me/us (your Bonnet supplier!) Yes it was a fantastic trip and if anybody wants a copy of the road book(yes we provided one of those as well) its your for a Kings Roger and the Memsahib ps We are booked onto the Spain ferry for June and September!! plus a week in Malta in March(SKIng) Spending the Kids Inheritance pps The Grim reaper is getting ever closer and still have to take the Bloody gearbox out to replace the Crap New clutch(still have a complete NOS one to go in which should see me out I hope?) ppps not sure which photos they used as our copy not here yet but I don't think I sent this one(I have about 600 with all the Schlump and Railway ones?) 1
JohnD Posted January 31 Posted January 31 Oh, so you were on that trip an d it was you and the Memsahib in the pics, just written by the different Roger? Not so far off then! Bests, and again, thanks for the bonnet - it's going well! John
rogerguzzi Posted January 31 Posted January 31 2 hours ago, JohnD said: Oh, so you were on that trip an d it was you and the Memsahib in the pics, just written by the different Roger? Not so far off then! Bests, and again, thanks for the bonnet - it's going well! John Hello John Wrong Again it was us that organised the trip for the other 4 cars and did all the bookings etc!
JohnD Posted January 31 Posted January 31 DoH! But you are now the Thomas Cook of Spanish Alpine Tours!
rogerguzzi Posted January 31 Posted January 31 Hello John I did offer to take them to Spain this year but no one jumped at it and the offer is now closed(Phew because it is a lot of hard work and responsibility?) Roger
Nick Jones Posted January 31 Author Posted January 31 Like the look of that last pic…. Where is that?
rogerguzzi Posted February 1 Posted February 1 14 hours ago, Nick Jones said: Like the look of that last pic…. Where is that? Hello Nick On the way up the cobbled road which was not as bad as we thought it would in fact Spitty hardly rattled! Roger
Nick Jones Posted February 2 Author Posted February 2 Oh…. Should have recognised it as we have been there!
zetecspit Posted February 4 Posted February 4 Seems Somerset is indeed skint, and like some other local authorities is allowed a nasty increase in council tax. That may just help a bit, but I expect it all to disappear into the ether. And like my experiences in Brighton&Hove, no matter what, council services keep shrinking. Here is a great example. One of our places was let out in October. The agents always send teh council all the details of the new occupants etc. Last week I got a stroppy letter from the council asking for occupant details. I pop into the agents, who let out a sigh. They resend the same email they did 3 months ago. It appears there is a backlog in the council that means they take at least 12 weeks, sometimes much longer, to sort the new occupancy details onto their system. But they chase after 12 weeks. Nuts. Likewise we were issued a draft HMO licence a year ago on a property. Agents nudged me about the full licence. Yep, we hadn't paid the blance. Because they had not sent the invoice. They did have the grace to apologise... sent the invoice and paid the same day. Ho hum. I am really looking forward to when they start rental licencing for most of the city. That entails 10x as many properties as the licencing scheme currently covers. They are not increasing the licencing team size. Methinks chaos will ensue.
thebrookster Posted February 4 Posted February 4 1 hour ago, zetecspit said: like some other local authorities is allowed a nasty increase in council tax. That may just help a bit, but I expect it all to disappear into the ether. No, regrettably it won't disappear into the ether, though that might be preferable! It will rather disappear into the pockets of the Westminster, via the increase in NI Employer contributions. We have several councils up here none too happy about this, increased funding etc for councils given with one hand and promptly snatched back by the other hand.
Escadrille Ecosse Posted February 4 Posted February 4 (edited) 2 hours ago, thebrookster said: No, regrettably it won't disappear into the ether, though that might be preferable! It will rather disappear into the pockets of the Westminster, via the increase in NI Employer contributions. We have several councils up here none too happy about this, increased funding etc for councils given with one hand and promptly snatched back by the other hand. Read this.... Everyone should. (and I challenge you to identify his political leaning) Essentially the main thing council budgets go on is social care. 60% plus. Like most of the big government expenditures which are pretty much health, social care and welfare these days, council budgets are subject to Baumol's cost disease. It takes the same length of time and the same number of musicials to play a Beathoven string quartet today as it did 200 years ago. The productivity of musicians has not increased one iota. However their wages have risen along with everyone else's. I assume you think that our doctors and nurses, care workers, social workers deserve decent pay. That old people, those on incapacity or with health issues deserve to receive benefits that keep up with inflation? So even if everything else stays the same. The same demand for health, welfare, social care, no additional old people, no-one lives longer, no new and expensive treatments, no more people on incapacity benefits, or heating allowances, etc, the cost of delivering exactly the same service will increase on average at the rate of inflation and by definition the tax system will need to collect and redistribute the equivalent increase. In other words the tax tax take need to go up to keep up at anywhere between 25 and 5% a year on average. And if the economy isn't growing that means people paying more tax. It's basic arithmetic and the population should stop kidding itself and demanding that our governments provide an ever greater level of support while not taking more in tax on the basis of 'increased efficiency'. It's bollocks. It is simply not possible to have a European level of social care with an American level of taxation. Edited February 4 by Escadrille Ecosse
Nick Jones Posted February 4 Author Posted February 4 5 hours ago, zetecspit said: like some other local authorities is allowed a nasty increase in council tax Well, even though I’m going to be among those paying it, I do approve. If you want your services to exist and work, you have to pay for them. Somerset council tax rates are currently among the lowest in the country due in no small part to the previous conservative run Somerset County Council freezing the rate for 6 years, including the covid years of high inflation. The previous government preferred that they would go “bust” than allow the new LD administration to raise the rate. However, I do agree with Phil regarding central government grabbing back via pay rises and increased NI, which is really unhelpful. Also really unhelpful was the previous government raising the council rate for care homes and not giving the councils any money to cover it. In Somerset around 70% of the budget is spent on “adult social care” and a big proportion of that is spent on nursing home fees. It is shocking to me that this takes priority over school funding and other things to help people with a future! The whole adult social care and its interface with the NHS can only be fixed at central government level but obviously it’s “too hard”
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