Town Hall’s £5 million pot of cash to fix holes
12:50pm Thursday 7th February 2013 in News
BOLTON’S worst roads will undergo £5 million of repairs and improvements.
Highways chiefs have announced the massive investment in the borough’s roads and footpaths, with work expected to start in April. The one-off funding will come from a pot of cash which Bolton Council has set aside and will be spent over the next two years.
Repair work will be targeted at Bolton’s worst roads and potholes and 14 will be resurfaced at a cost of £2.4 million. A further £1.2 million will be spent on preventing further deterioration and restoring the skid resistance of 19 roads by sealing them with one or more layers of bitumen and hard stone chippings. This will be the first work carried out.
Thousands of potholes on other roads across the borough will be repaired with £400,000 of the funding.
Key footpaths across the borough will be resurfaced with £850,000 investment and £150,000 will be used on repairing footpaths to help extend their life.
Cllr Nick Peel, pictured, Executive Cabinet Member for the Environment, said: “We are doing everything we can to improve our roads and footpaths under extremely difficult financial circumstances.
“This is investment that is clearly needed and while the money does not by any means tackle all the work we would like to do, it does help us to tackle some of the backlog we have.
“We’ve chosen roads and footpaths based on engineering surveys, and this extra funding will help to target the worst of the deterioration on some of our busy local roads. This extra funding follows on from the £6 million that we have invested in our road network in the last three years.”
Successive bad winters and a cut in government grants to maintain Bolton’s road network have been blamed for the “significant” increase in the number of potholes and the deterioration of the roads.
Arthur Lane in Bradshaw will receive the largest amount of cash — £352,200 — followed by £250,140 for Smithills Dean Road in Smithills, £262,992 for Lever Edge Lane in Great Lever, £132,816 for Park Road in Heaton, £217,200 for Oakwood Drive in Heaton, and £245,520 for Junction Road West in Ladybridge.
Cllr Peel said: “Ice affects roads in a very damaging way. When water gets into cracks in the road and freezes it expands and physically pushes the concrete out.
“Sometimes it’s not always what you can see either, but what’s going on underneath that’s the problem, and our engineers use sonar machines to spot defects under the surface.
“Roads might have cracks developing underneath and all it will take is for winter to set in and for a heavy truck to go over it to cause damage.”
The work has been prioritised following reports from the council’s engineers.
The £5 million is from a pot of £14 million capital cash set aside for boosting the borough, which councillors announced last September. Due to government restrictions the funding cannot be used to offset government spending cuts and has to be used on one-off schemes.
Town Hall bosses are expected to slash the council’s overall budget by £43 million over the next two years with up to 720 posts being lost.
The latest figures show Bolton Council paid out almost £50,000 in compensation to motorists whose vehicles have been damaged by potholes and poor roads over just two years.
Damage includes punctured or damaged tyres, problems with suspension and wheel rim and steering damage.
Comments(28)
John Edwards
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11:59am Thu 7 Feb 13
Phil from Smithills
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12:10pm Thu 7 Feb 13
Last year I telephoned the highways department informing them that the grids had been neglected and were filling up with debris,unfortunatell
y the rain water now runs over the grids and accross the junction and down Smithills Dean Road.
In freezing conditions, the junction will ice over, causing major problem to motorist, especially at night. One of the reasons the junction had work done to it. All was required, was for those grids to be included into a routine cleaning schedule when the grids around that area were cleaned out.
hoboh2o
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12:16pm Thu 7 Feb 13
Seems the fat controller and his mafia ain't sussed the sheep that used to vote in the pig with the red rosette have either moved on or died! You reap what you sow Mr Labour people.
tracy1000
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12:27pm Thu 7 Feb 13
mralwayscorrect
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12:45pm Thu 7 Feb 13
boltoncity
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12:46pm Thu 7 Feb 13
boltoncity
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12:47pm Thu 7 Feb 13
mralwayscorrect wrote:mmmmmmm pork chops
This money is better off being spent on pork chops, they're delicious and feed an entire family.
everymuseumone
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1:08pm Thu 7 Feb 13
Winston"2+2=5"Smith
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1:08pm Thu 7 Feb 13
Towny1981
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1:51pm Thu 7 Feb 13
boltoncity wrote:Not if they're a Jewish or Muslim family, in which case fish would be more appropriate. There's a man in London who sells fish for one pound, that's a lot of fish.
mralwayscorrect wrote:mmmmmmm pork chops
This money is better off being spent on pork chops, they're delicious and feed an entire family.
mralwayscorrect
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2:04pm Thu 7 Feb 13
Winston"2+2=5"Smith wrote:Those people don't like pork chops, though? Not unless they've been killed in a barbaric way, in which case they're fine.....
No doubt the vast majority of the money will be spent in the Deane, Daubhill, Halliwell Rd and Blackburn Rd areas with only a tiny amount for the rest of us proles.
davoovad
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3:31pm Thu 7 Feb 13
hoboh2o wrote:They are just running the place down before they close it.
Farnworth and Kearsley will end up getting sod all again!
Seems the fat controller and his mafia ain't sussed the sheep that used to vote in the pig with the red rosette have either moved on or died! You reap what you sow Mr Labour people.
Beyond News Forum
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3:55pm Thu 7 Feb 13
Still it's a start.
xxenigmaxx
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6:51pm Thu 7 Feb 13
underwater
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7:28pm Thu 7 Feb 13
sallyupsteps
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8:21pm Thu 7 Feb 13
john163uk
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9:23pm Thu 7 Feb 13
boltonnut
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10:07pm Thu 7 Feb 13
Harveyharvey
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9:22am Fri 8 Feb 13
were doomed
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12:19pm Fri 8 Feb 13
The surface is as bumpy as before with the potholes
£5m??? I wouldnt invest a fiver to cowboys like them
jazzmick
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10:39am Sat 9 Feb 13
BWFC71
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3:31pm Tue 12 Feb 13
everymuseumone wrote:But there is no such thing as the Road Tax!!!!
It is about time the Government and local Councils started using Road Tax money to fix the reads....the whole reason the tax exists. Perhaps i should start sending my bills for replacement tyres to the town hall every time they are ruined by pot holes that they fail to deal with.
Motor Vehicle Excise Duty is what you are talking about and that is done on a Central Government basis with some car users payiong either nothing or a fiver for the annual tax and some car users paying 600+ annually.
Local roads (i.e. non-Motorway) come under the control of local Government and as such Central Government has no direct say.
BWFC71
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3:34pm Tue 12 Feb 13
Harveyharvey wrote:That because you do not pay a Road Tax. You pay a Motor Vehicle Excise Duty (and pay somehwre between £0 and upto £1500 annually) which goes into the Central Government coffers. Local Roads (i.e. non-Motorways) are paid and repaired via Council Tax!!!
There's an badly deteriorated speed bump on Higher Swan Lane. Good it makes you slow down to 5mph but not what I pay Road Tax for.
BWFC71
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3:37pm Tue 12 Feb 13
sallyupsteps wrote:No such thing as a road fund. There is a Motor Vehicle Excise Duty, of which drivers pay between £0 and £1500 annually) which goes into Central Government Coffers, but local roads (Non-Motorway) and paid and repaired through the Council Tax!!!
The road fund would go a lot further if some of our home grown lazy B******s got of the backsides and cleared some grids out. From Astley Bridge to Moss Bank 75% of the grids are stopped with debris.
hoboh2o
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4:24pm Tue 12 Feb 13
BWFC71 wrote:You stuck in a time warp?
sallyupsteps wrote:No such thing as a road fund. There is a Motor Vehicle Excise Duty, of which drivers pay between £0 and £1500 annually) which goes into Central Government Coffers, but local roads (Non-Motorway) and paid and repaired through the Council Tax!!!
The road fund would go a lot further if some of our home grown lazy B******s got of the backsides and cleared some grids out. From Astley Bridge to Moss Bank 75% of the grids are stopped with debris.
It was the road tax fund the same as the council tax is a variation of poll tax and is still refered to as such by many.
The one word that binds these all together is TAX! Would you give £1500 grand a year or whatever and trust your local dope dealer to deliver a decent service? No, then why trust folk like many jobs Morris who will import half of Romania and Bulgeria PROVIDING THEY WILL VOTE FOR HIM NEXT YEAR!
Too many people blame Asians for all our woes, try looking at the horse meat traders of Eastern Europe if you want sleepless nights.
boltoncity
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12:47pm Wed 13 Feb 13
BWFC71
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12:44am Thu 14 Feb 13
hoboh2o wrote:It seems to me that you are stuck in a time-warp as it has not been officially the Road Fund Tax since 1937!!! And even then most of the money for the money and upkkep of the roads came from local taxation!!!
BWFC71 wrote:You stuck in a time warp?
sallyupsteps wrote:No such thing as a road fund. There is a Motor Vehicle Excise Duty, of which drivers pay between £0 and £1500 annually) which goes into Central Government Coffers, but local roads (Non-Motorway) and paid and repaired through the Council Tax!!!
The road fund would go a lot further if some of our home grown lazy B******s got of the backsides and cleared some grids out. From Astley Bridge to Moss Bank 75% of the grids are stopped with debris.
It was the road tax fund the same as the council tax is a variation of poll tax and is still refered to as such by many.
The one word that binds these all together is TAX! Would you give £1500 grand a year or whatever and trust your local dope dealer to deliver a decent service? No, then why trust folk like many jobs Morris who will import half of Romania and Bulgeria PROVIDING THEY WILL VOTE FOR HIM NEXT YEAR!
Too many people blame Asians for all our woes, try looking at the horse meat traders of Eastern Europe if you want sleepless nights.
Morris nor any part of the Bolton Council, does not collect the Motor Vehicle Excise Duty as that is collected by Central Government. And anyway how do you know that there are no Romanians or Bulgarians already in the town. For my two-penniesworth I would rather have work migrants coming into to the UK, do honest days work pay into the system than any British work-shy chav anyday!!! I know who I would trust more!
Funny how you mention horse meat traders of Eastern Europe when its the horse-meat traders of the UK that are being investigated more than anywhere elswe in the UK.
Instead of blaming the easy targets how about looking at our own country and seeing how its our own people that have created a mess both in cultural and legal systems before passing the buck on to EU, other europeans, asians or other foreigners.
PS do you honestly really think that Romanians and Bulgarians will come to the UK considering the changes in the benefit system and that their closest allies (being Germany and Austria as seen during WWII when they were allies, and long long before) have more job opportunities and less unemployed than the UK!!! Get Real!
boydell says...
10:35am Thu 7 Feb 13