?2.9 million -

[Bazj]

I?ve just had one of my staff come in this morning

 

would that be the Butler or the Cook?

[Peter T]

I?ve just had one of my staff come in this morning

 

would that be the Butler or the Cook?

 

Probably the chauffeur.

[harry hayes]

Just weight of traffic and it can only get worse. I remember when the M6 was a Warrington bye-pass; and Kingsway to Long Lane was another.

 

Sticking plasters on a gaping wound call for drastic action - it's either put up with it or have some form of number plate rationing.

 

Happy days

[Bill]

Both close, but it was actually the butler?s chauffeur!

 

I?d like to think there are more options than that Harry. The way I see it is that the growth in car ownership will at some point in the future plateau out, be it due to economics or just over congestion. So if we could work on the worst case needs, factor in all the variables and come up with a positive plan, we could end up with a transportation that works for both private and public systems.

 

You have to want to do this of course but our politicians although supposedly representing the wishes of the people, tend to think very differently and to my way of thinking, seem to overly focus on minority needs. That might sound heartless but a balance needs to be struck between actual needs and costs and here?s where ?we? seem to get it all wrong.

 

Take the changes to the lights on Manchester Road that I?ve been banging on about. They say they have to redo the entire system to provide for disabled, blind and cyclist and nobody would dare argue with that. But having lived in the area for nearly thirty years and used this crossing several times each day, I can honestly say that I can?t ever recall seeing anyone in a wheelchair or with a guide dog for that matter, attempting to cross there. As for the bikes, well I?m not even going to go there!

 

So we run around on roads worse than some third world countries because we can?t even afford to fill the potholes but we can take comfort in the knowledge that if someone with a wheelchair ever needs to cross at that point, it will be easier for them.

 

This is getting a too deep so let me end here. Just one final observation though, the traffic light guy today summed it up when he said its not costing us anything anyway because it?s only government money.

 

 

Bill

[inky pete]

the traffic light guy today summed it up when he said its not costing us anything anyway because it?s only government money.

 

Typical bloody publicly funded pen-pushers attitude!

 

Wherever it comes from, that's MY bloody money he's wasting!

 

Name him, and ask his boss how long he's going to stay in a job with an attitude like that.

 

I reckon it's time to cut the "it's not our fault, we're not responsible for ANYTHING" local politicians out of the media altogether (they won't like that!) and for Gary and his counterparts elsewhere to do their interviews and articles on the heads of departments who actually make these god-awful decisions.

[Bill]

Don?t have to name anyone Pete, this sort of view is the norm amongst all but the general public. The not real money thing crops up all over the place and it?s not just our local government either.

 

For example, I recently had a bit of a run in with the Blackburn police when they wanted to come and talk with me but wouldn?t tell me what it was about. I told them it would be a waste of public money for them to drive that distance if it turned out I couldn?t help them but they were adamant they were going to do it anyway. As it happened it was ok but it could just as easily have been a complete waste of public money.

 

All a load of old rubbish but that?s the way the system works. Just as long as they play by the rules they?re bullet proof, even if it doesn?t make any sense to us peeons.

 

Bill

[inky pete]

The "system" only works that way because the public services are not held accountable by anyone.

 

The people who are supposed to be doing it, or elected councillors, have effectively resigned from the job of exercising any control over how the services they were elected to oversee are actually run.

 

They turn over ever increasing amounts of our money in the form of departmental budgets and the police precept without so much as a whimper - never mind setting clear and un-ambiguous policies to be followed and performance criteria to be achieved in return for said money.

 

Pretty much every department and service within both the local and national public sectors suffers from this same total lack of direction, oversight, and real consequences for poor performance. Actual policies and priorities seem to be made up on the fly by middle managers who flit off to other posts before their chickens can come home to roost, while councillors and senior managers waffle on endlessly about their "corporate vision" and "mission statements" as a means of avoiding pitching in and getting their hands dirty.

 

Any commercial business which treated paying customers in the way the public sector treats its would soon find those customers voting with their feet and taking their valuable business elsewhere.

 

It is the artificial monopoly nature of most public services which enables them to sit back, spend all the money on doing a substandard job, and then moan about how they need more money to acheive even less next year.

[wahl]

Bill , Inky Pete

you may think things are badly managed now, just wait till the nonsensical LTP3 is implemented. this is the biggest load of rubbish I have ever read, yet our esteemed councillors - or those who used to be councillors - thougfht it was marvellous.

[observer]

You mean things won't really change that much now that Labour are back in control?

[AdrianR]

http://www.warrington.gov.uk/content_documents/Documents/Roads/Proposed_Long_Lane_with_Aerial_Photo.pdf

 

Starts 23rd May. Temporary lights in place whilst work going on. Ouch.

 

3 sets of lights within just this map. At least they didnt fill the bus bays in as per the original plan.

 

Chaos on this road for 6 months i bet and then another 6 - 12 months whilst they iron out the errors caused. Calver road still isnt finished - looks like they have given up on them.