Most people who live in Nottinghamshire know that the Nottingham City and County Councils currently hold the top two positions in the League Of Biggest ******** (fill in the blanks, and feel free to add or remove a couple to make your favoured word fit) On The Entire Planet.
Two years ago, one (or possibly both) of them decided to allow National Grid to commence gas main replacement at multiple sites simultaneously. By “multiple”, I mean dozens of them. They also allowed Morgan Siddall to start doing something with the electrical cables – also at multiple (but different) sites – at the same time. They sanctioned this just as work started on Phase II of Nottingham’s world-ranked national joke known as “The Tram”. It has been complete chaos ever since, with occasional peaks of traffic gridlock that you couldn’t imagine in your wildest dreams.
All of the mentioned work is currently still in progress – almost two years after it started. National Grid in particular seem to have abandoned the myriad holes with plastic barriers and coiled yellow tubing that it has dug, though it is still digging new pits, and one simply has to guess at what year they’re likely to complete the work and put the pavements back to the way they were, and pack away all their temporary traffic lights and road closure signs.
As if all of that wasn’t enough, the Highways Agency has begun its massively overdue widening work on the A453.
But that’s not all. Latest problems motorists have to deal with in an around Nottingham – above and beyond everything I’ve listed above – include: unpredictable road closures for “emergency bridge repairs” on Clifton Bridge; unpredictable road closures for resurfacing work near the Nottingham Knight roundabout; random weekend road closures as the County Council in particular continues its Jihad against any tree older than about 5-6 years, lest a twig should fall on a child; huge holes with steel-reinforced sides which last for months at a time and which appear in unpredictable locations; totally unnecessary “upgrading” of traffic lights at numerous junctions; building companies engaged in construction of those ugly, modern housing developments putting up completely over-the-top temporary lights for weeks or months at a time; any two-bit labouring firm putting up temporary 3- or 4-way lights for any reason they feel like just to massage inferior egos; etc. Most people who live around here would agree that the City and the County is in a complete, incompetently managed mess.
So it should come as little surprise to hear that Zouch, – pronounced “zoosh”, a village in Nottinghamshire with a population 53, and which is less than about three quarters of a mile long – has 8 speed limit changes to contend with. It didn’t used to have. There used to be just three: 60mph leading into it, 40mph while you were there, and 60mph out of it again.
The BBC report quotes some five-year old as saying:
Originally the majority of the main road – the A6006 – was 60mph. In 2005, a 50mph limit was imposed to the east of Zouch as part of an accident remedial scheme.
At the same time a 40mph limit was imposed through the village. The aim of the scheme was to manage speed which had been identified as a contributory factor in incidents.
Last year, a 30mph speed limit was introduced to cover the built area. This is similar to the situation in Hathern where a 30mph speed limit exists with a 40mph buffer.
This nonsense implies that the route in question was an accident black spot, when it definitely wasn’t. Sure, it’s was danger route for motorcycles, but it still is because they don’t obey speed limits in the first place and it is a favoured drag strip of theirs.It wasn’t known for a significant number of accidents involving cars or pedestrians, and Zouch’s small population of “53” (i.e. less than a bus full) isn’t the result of any previous vehicular carnage.
The simple fact is that Nottingham’s incompetent councils have cut speed limits on dozens of roads. Some councils in the UK spend their time on other pointless issues. Nottingham’s councils’ specialist subject is “cutting and changing speed limits”. The ridiculous situation in Zouch – which is a hindrance and a danger to 99% of those who encounter it – is merely a part of that, and not some urgently needed action. It’s just a case of spotty-faced kids in new jobs sitting round flipcharts in team meetings for too long coming up with pointless changes.
Nottingham’s councils appear to have a major issue with traffic inasmuch as everything they do is clearly designed either to have a negative impact on the motorist, or to create more traffic hold-ups per se. Nothing they sanction has any urgency about it, and quite frankly, if ever they do suddenly expedite something it is only after a noticeable period of almost deliberate inconvenience to the motorist. I’m fairly certain that the Police have had to get involved in order to get things resolved more quickly on more than one occasion, and yet the morons at the two councils still don’t seem to have got the message. Any changes to speed limits or new road works is obviously geared to cause as much inconvenience to the motorist as possible.