Dear All,
In recent months In the South East, I’ve noticed that on almost every journey there is at least one road closed…
For example, earlier today I took my daughter to school.
The journey time is usually ~30 minutes, but the Mrs warned me that you now need to take some obscure route along single track country lanes to get there.
…because one of the two main routes has been closed for the last month…
The other option is to sit in traffic, making the journey time 2 hours!
And when you do go cross country there are multiple country lanes that are *also* closed along the route, creating absolute chaos.
Last week I went to visit the race team I drive for.
The usual time to get there is around 1 hour.
But it took me over 2 hours each way due to multiple road closures along the — mostly country — route…
My friend Wayne took another friend to the airport last week.
He told me that for around 10 miles the motorway was reduced to one lane, causing a massive traffic jam.
There was no obvious reason for the closure, and there was not a single person doing anything!
I did a quick search online and it seems I’m not the only one to have noticed this trend…
A popular YouTuber called Richard Vobes released a video in which he suggests the reason for so many closures is part of a larger agenda to cause maximum inconvenience to Motorists, and so encourage us out of our cars:
I’d like to ask Members:
Is it like this where you live?
…and do you have any idea as to why so many roads are being closed, seemingly without any good reason?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below:
All the best,
Adam
Richard Vobes is spot-on on many issues, and I encourage all to watch his short vids.
Yes, Ive always thought that to discourage driving for whatever bizzare reason, they just create chaos for purely that reason. Same reason they leave large holes everywhere unrepaired for many months…
The current state of our roads are so bad it is national disgrace our leaders should hang their heads in shame.
Isle of Wight to North Bedfordshire Tue 4th June.
Main roads on Island Shanklin to Ventnor closed. Land slips. Many other island roads shut too. A34 north closed from M3 with signposted diversion on to A33. Then nothing.
M3 50 Mph from just north of Fleet to M25. Why? Only just been turned into a far from smart motorway.
M1 chaos Luton to I assume J13 but had no choice but to leave at J12 as A421 closed north, just as it was 2 weeks ago.
As you say night driving is a complete and utter pain and there are no alternatives nowadays as trains are in bed on the main lines just gone 10pm.
I’m in agreement with him, this is a corrupt Government sponsored jobs-for-the-boys to not only drain the coffers before they are booted out at election, but a diktat from the WEF to punish and inconvenience the motorist on the daily.
They simply don’t want you to have the freedoms of the open road or movement without their express permission, and want to monitor your every move.
“You will own nothing, and you WILL be happy”
George Soros, WEF Conference 2019
All of these un-necessary closures and un-necessary traffic lights for work on the edge of the road or pavement are causing businesses to be inefficient and weakening the UK economy. The Government should ban them.
It’s the same all over London and the Home counties.
Initially I put it down to the various councils spending the last of their allocated road funds, which causes numerous last minute roadworks up to about the end of May.
But this year the amount of work being undertaken is immense!
As you say, virtually every journey has temporary traffic lights or road closures. And many of these have only just started, so they will be on the 2024-25 budget.
So I think Richard Vobes has a point!
It’s all part of the anti-motorist policy that’s deeply infected planners and embedded in decision-making.
Once-upon-a-time, there used to be coordinated planning and consideration when roads were closed or problems. Now, there is a policy of ignoring road users and letting them stew.
To stand up for motorists or offer realistic, practical alternatives to driving is considered heresy and not beneficial for careers.
‘Make it much more difficult to use personal transport’, that’s the instruction.
Same where I am. In a forgotten corner of Gloucestershire called, The Forest of Dean.
My theory is, it makes us use more fuel. And who benefits from that? Government
We pay road tax and tax on fuel to use the roads, are we not entitled to rebates as we cannot use what we pay for?
It seems the only roads that actually move have speed cameras on them
Same in and around Glasgow & Edinburgh and as you noticed too very few or no road workers around. A lot of traffic jam issues in Glasgow are now caused by the installation of cycle lanes thereby reducing roads to one lane for motorists where there is loads of space around these areas to accommodate cycle lanes without affecting motorists. The LEZ in the city centre is just causing traffic issues in the surrounding areas now making work and school journeys frustrating.
It’s the same in Motherwell, Hamilton, Glasgow etc roads closed or lights in operation causing mayhem
In Cumbria we have a main road closed from 7pm until 6.30 am for the next 4 weeks this entails a detour of 120 miles the local council thinks this is not a problem
I think you will find cones being in place greatly enhances the contract value.
Being allowed to place and remove when contractor wishes to for their convenience should be controlled but is it? John
You should try in and around Oxford.
One of the main drags into Oxford, the Botley Road has been closed for well over a year and will be for almost another year.
Total chaos on all the other roads into Oxford because of it
It’s basically to control the motorist big brother will watch you.
Like many things with camera it’s to control you and watch what you do and we’re you go. And collect funds for speeding. Gone are the days of a fair cop!
100 percent. See my earlier comment 5 from the top/start of the comments
Control, control, control!
In Chaddesden, Derby the dopey council have decided to put in cycle tracks along the Nottingham road so there is a lot of road works going on yet you hardly ever see a cyclist riding down the Nottingham road, given the fact that this is a main route into the town and now when someone decides to turn right at certain roads no other traffic can get past until they have turned it is an absolute joke.
There seems to be a large section of the M25 where one lane is closed off. Roughly from the A1 to M11. Nothing seems to be happening?? Been like it for at least two weeks.
It’s just wokery
Many roads are closed with no one working on them. Potholes everywhere. Road surfaces worn away. Driving at night is dangerous. When it’s raining a deep pothole looks like a mere puddle. If you drive through it, your suspension can be ruined, as well as your tyres. We officially have the worst roads in Europe.
Southampton Council do the same thing, close a road and then put roadworks on the alternative routes. They also take twice as long as originally advised but that mainly seems to be because of the contractors Balfour Beatty. You can’t but help think that BB do it slow to milk the system. In the meantime the potholes get worse as they dream up new ways to inconvenience the motorist.
Yes it’s happening up here I. The North. Bradford is undergoing massive changes. The town centre is in turmoil with roads closed, some of them permanently now so it’s an absolute nightmare trying to navigate around town right now. Everybody tries to leave home early to get to work but that just causes bottlenecks.
Sometimes they block book certain machinery to cover a few sites as that saves money. This results in lengthy delays whilst each road works waits for the machinery resulting in the irritating ‘no work being done’ situation. They also don’t plan things properly so the alternative route to avoid roadworks often also has roadworks. I don’t think they are deliberately making things difficult for motorists, they just don’t think things through properly. Incompetence rather than malice.
Re. Richard Vobes , spot on WEF/BLOB . He speaks a lot of reason, although I dont go for his “chem” trails
I used to make jokes years ago about the onset of the nanny state by saying “won’t be long before they’ll be taxing us for how much air we breath”. But actually that effectively is what they want to do.
I think the UK must currently hold the world record for the amount of roadworks per mile of motorway. I travelled around the M25 recently and by a rough calculation I would say around 40% of it is coned off in one way or another. There is also the age old problem of miles of restrictions and only a small handful of people actually working.
The A68 is considered a major route to Scotland yet Northumberland council closed the road at Carter Bar between the hours of 09.00 and 15.00 for a whole month. There is no viable alternative route but when I travelled the road AFTER 15.00 hrs there was no sign whatsoever of any roadworks being executed. The residents of the Scottish Borders were never informed of the intended inconvenience of their only direct route into England. Utterly disgusting!
It is unacceptable to have roads closed when there is no work in progress. It shows how little the road work contractors and authorities care about drivers. There are two solutions that I have heard of that address this problem:
1. A System of Lane Rental, whereby contractors pay for each lane closure for the time it is closed. This was an idea put forward in Parliament longer ago than I care to remember.
2. Penalty clauses. The Dutch and the Japanese are good at this. If the contractor does not finish the job in time, he must pay penalties.
Our roads are a national disgrace, I agree; however, I am not sure that there is a larger agenda to cause maximum inconvenience to motorists, and so discourage using our cars. It is more a case of incompetence, poor planning and lack of coordination between councils and those responsible for for maintenance and/or working on the roads. How many times have we seen a complete road re-surfacing, followed almost immediately by a telephone company digging a trench; with a water company laying a new pipeline shortly after this. The post-work repair is invariably poorly carried out as well. Potholes are rarely properly repaired but merely patched with a temporary filling which lasts six months if you are lucky. I have just returned from a 300+ mile journey, plagued by long, long stretches of motorway speed restrictions and lanes closuresd off with cones but with no one working there.
Most of the time it’s more cock up than conspiracy. The various Transport Acts that intended to keep roads open have combined with elf an safety to result in the opposite.
What now happens is – utility company has duty to safe working so “needs” to close Road where in the good old days, two blokes would get a few cones out and get on with it.
For minor works here’s a typical timeline/ The utility company contract with a Highway maintenance or traffic management company to provide a plan for the work including setting up diversion or traffic lights.
The signs and closure is set up for Sunday. The TM company send a message to the utility company. The utility company send the blokes out on Monday or Tuesday. An inspection is done on Wednesday. The final road resurfacing is typically done by yet someone else on Thursday or Friday and the signs are taken down on Saturday.
I have seen this locally time after time. A days or two in old money takes a week.
And why do major works take so long? Because they work 25% of the available time. No commercial company doing a business case would do it the way National Highway and Local Authorities do it.
I have come acrosso badly damaged by potholess this many times and it’s a pain in the a**e!. But there are roads now in N. Notts. that are so badly damaged that, they are havinjg to closed altogether. And for motorcyclists the roads around here are very dangerous for them especially. I don’t know much about other areas but Notts. roads all over the county ae lethal in places. And many are being repaired for a 2nd or 3rd time because they were bogded previosly. And that scenario is being repeatewd all over and over again in Notts.
Last week I travelled Leeds to London. 90% of journey was road works, either lane closer for miles or 50mph limit+diversion. Took me 5 hrs.
I was under impression there High court ruling that you can repair one or 2 miles at a time. Someone should file public litigation.