Rant re: road "resurfacing"

Over Clocker

Over Clocker

Over Clocker

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Hi guys,

The road we live on was not particularly bad, not too good by the curbs, but the main surface was fine. Then, in September, we get a notice to say Surrey County Council are going to resurface our road. Cool I thought, a nice smooth surface!

We were away for a week. We came back to fine their method of resurfacing was to grind up the top centimetre or so, then 'glue' the chippings down to the surface!

This resulted is a very noisy, bumpy and loose road surface. Was a bit like driving on gravel! This was their finished surface! About a month ago, at last most of the loose bits had gone, and the parked cars were not getting sprayed with debris every time a car drove past! However, now, the chippings are all coming off and the surface is REALLY bad!

Am going to write a letter to the council now, as are some of our neighbours.

Also, we read yesterday that Surrey had a massive UNDERspend on their roads budget for the the past 3 years. Why not spending it by doing the job properly!
 
Over Clocker said:
Also, we read yesterday that Surrey had a massive UNDERspend on their roads budget for the the past 3 years. Why not spending it by doing the job properly!
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My guess is that your road was changed to spend money, so that they are closer to targets ;)
 
Our local council seem to have abandoned the "loose chippings" approach to road resurfacing. But still, when they do resurface it's never that great. I village near me was fully resurfaced a few months ago, but the new road is rougher than the old one. When I was in Spain in the summer their roads had no bumps and there was no tyre roar at all. Just why are we incapable of building decent quality road surfaces in this country?
 
Ben M said:
My guess is that your road was changed to spend money, so that they are closer to targets ;)
Click to expand...

Yep, they have done that twice now to out road, in the past 6 months!

Skim the surface, add a layer of crappy stones and tar, leave to dry.

Wonderful...

The most annoying thing was, we had a really REALLY decent tarmac road beforehand, that had absolutely nothing wrong with it, no cracks, no raised sections, no holes, NOTHING. Its a quiet cul-de-sac too, so no throughfare. :(

Idiots.
 
I don't like councils spending money just to get more next year, then not spend it, then spend it all in the last month to get more to not spend next year!!

It's why we pay so much tax, and it's why we all have a crap new one way system.
 
In my village a lot of the roads were recently resurfaced and after all the chippings had gone away the surface is loverly infact, even at the bottom of a short 20-30degree incline where there is only slight deformation of the surface due to heavy tractors and whatnot accelerating up that bit. But the rest of the road is perfectly suitable.
 
They did a similar job around here on the A & B roads (not the residential estates). The council just took a bit off the top and put down glue/bluey grey gravel stuff that gets compacted by traffic overtime. The pot holes and bumps were still there, as this was just a thin layer over everything, instead of taking it down deeper and filling the holes properly.
 
Local council came and painted our road a few years ago. I don't mean the lines, I mean the road. A few guys masked off all the grids and the kerbs, and then the painted some kind of rough black stuff all over the road and pavement, which has now faded and worn so much its like ice in the wet.
 
It's a cheap and quick way of doing it, although the results are usually terrible. But if you have a problem with a road let the council know about it, they should all have a highways enquiry number.
If people don't moan then nothing will get fixed.
 
MonkeyMan said:
It's a cheap and quick way of doing it, although the results are usually terrible. But if you have a problem with a road let the council know about it, they should all have a highways enquiry number.
If people don't moan then nothing will get fixed.
Click to expand...

If people do moan they'll come and loose chip it all again. :D
 
Over Clocker said:
Hi guys,

The road we live on was not particularly bad, not too good by the curbs, but the main surface was fine. Then, in September, we get a notice to say Surrey County Council are going to resurface our road. Cool I thought, a nice smooth surface!

We were away for a week. We came back to fine their method of resurfacing was to grind up the top centimetre or so, then 'glue' the chippings down to the surface!

This resulted is a very noisy, bumpy and loose road surface. Was a bit like driving on gravel! This was their finished surface! About a month ago, at last most of the loose bits had gone, and the parked cars were not getting sprayed with debris every time a car drove past! However, now, the chippings are all coming off and the surface is REALLY bad!

Am going to write a letter to the council now, as are some of our neighbours.

Also, we read yesterday that Surrey had a massive UNDERspend on their roads budget for the the past 3 years. Why not spending it by doing the job properly!
Click to expand...

Where abouts in Surrey was it? Where i live they decided to do the whole length of my road (Ruxley Lane) and most of Chessington Road (from the longmead estate all the way up to 'i think' the one end of ruxley lane.

Was a right pain, as it stank to high heaven and if you were going any faster than about 15mph the stones flicked up and smacked into the windscreen. They also did a lot of Kingston Road and no doubt in a couple of years time the surface will crack up again (not that it was that bad last time) and so the process will begin again.

They are such a pain.
 
the did a few of the main roads road my area with the spray down tar then cover with small chippings technique, for the first few days it resembled something from the trans-siberian highway(no kidding) it was very dry at the time and the dust just hung in the air, it was actually rather cool, but when the dust cleared and the chips had settled and they eventually got a sweeper to it(2 weeks later) , it actually turned out to be quite a nice surface until 2 clear lines where the heavy traffic had worn it down to the layer of tar beneath, now its just as bad as it was before and a tad dangerous in the wet, i mean come on 6 months, surely in this day and age they can make a road surface last longer than 6 months.
 
schumi84 said:
Where abouts in Surrey was it? Where i live they decided to do the whole length of my road (Ruxley Lane) and most of Chessington Road (from the longmead estate all the way up to 'i think' the one end of ruxley lane.

Was a right pain, as it stank to high heaven and if you were going any faster than about 15mph the stones flicked up and smacked into the windscreen. They also did a lot of Kingston Road and no doubt in a couple of years time the surface will crack up again (not that it was that bad last time) and so the process will begin again.

They are such a pain.
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Just up the road from you! Ewell Village. Kingston Road, the bit opposite the Hogsmill near the old Mill.

I drive past Ruxley Lane every morning on the A240, well, I take the side roads around W Park now due to traffic.
 
In our county they get given a budget, if they don't spend it all some of it gets taken off them.. So they spend all the money on the wrong roads.

I don't understand why they put such thick people in charge of the roads... all the mostly used roads around here are rubbish and in need of serious repair.. and the council go and repair all the ones that are used by two cars a day and the main roads which were done last year :(
 
Chippings are bloody awful, they're all coming loose on the hill they did near me and they're just gathering at the bottom.

The council are morons.
 
TaKeN said:
I don't understand why they put such thick people in charge
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Because its easy, It's not a well paid job, so the intelligent people get proper careers. The idiots work in Retail and the Council.

The state of Ivy Road near me is absolutely abysmal, but "It slows down cars" is their response. Of course a slight bit of rain and twelve different surfaces in so many meters leads braking distances something to be desired. Such dire road conditions are not acceptable in this tax rich environment.

And bloody pot holes. I reported one to see how long it would take, it's been six months and it's still not fixed. There is a part of road here that is falling into the drains and it's going to take the road and pavement with it, and they couldn't really care.
 
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