Not much cash left for potholes

"Only potholes deemed a danger will be repaired," states an article in the Courier this mornning. A very alarming and illuminating article.

"The Council only has around £135,000 in its budget to pay for temporary patch repairs across the region as well as other road works including markings, signs and repairs to gullies and verges, up to ist April, while a pot of £250,000 is all that remains to do major resurfacing and restructuring works." More details in today's Inverness Courier.

Oor Graham had a few roads cash statistics when it came to debate about the state of the Fishertown roads on Tuesday night. The Gurn will get round to analysis of that later today. In fact it will be a bit of a roads day here on the Gurn. Oor Sandy seems partially supportive of the West End "Access Only" movement. More on his comments in the Nairnshire later and Iain Bain had an editorial about Nairnshire roads and bridges too. More later Gurnites when time permits.

Pothole alert A96

Watch out for this rapidly expanding pothole on the A96 on the way into town, just about mid-way between Grant's Garage and the Merryton traffic lights. The Gurn has reported the pothole to BEAR.

Gurn Pothole Patrol - Update.

0800-028-1414 is the number to report potholes on the trunk road network. Transport Scotland then logs them and forwards the information to the trunk road operator responsible.

This morning the Gurn informed them of the potholes between the Lochloy Junction and the King Street roundabout. Pictures here. One or two of these holes are more serious than others especially the one at the manhole cover at the Harour Street/Brae junction. Also entire sections of this stretch seem to be breaking up and look as though they too will soon become even longer series of pot holes. Repair work was undertaken in January but things are looking bad again.

One wonders why we have to report these potholes, surely BEAR vehicles travel the route daily and their employees will have to negotiate these holes just like everyone else?

Friday night is pothole repair night!

A massive squad of BEAR vehicles, plant and employes down on the A96 tonight fixing the potholes. Temporary repairs were made last week after Fergus Ewing sent off an e-mail to a few high heid yins asking when things would be sorted. He inspected the road surface for himself last Saturday and now a major effort is underway - coincidence?

Rapid result on potholes from Fergus

The deepest one of the lot no more - the former pothole at the lights at the bottom of the Brae

No longer any need to worry about the pothole if waiting to turn left into Lochloy Road at the crossroads.

As soon Fergus Ewing MSP received a link to the Gurn's latest edition of Pothole Watch on Flickr he fired off an e-mail to a few high heid yins wanting to know when this stretch of Road between Grant's Garage and the King Street roundabout on the A96 would be sorted. He told all concerned that he would be going for a look himself today (Saturday).
Well Fergus certainly prompted fast action from the contractors and repairs have been carried out to most of the offending spots. The repairs are of a rough and ready nature, and by no means as good as ones carried out straight after a similar complaint to Fergus last February, but they will do until a more permanent solution is found for this stretch of road. Drivers will once again be able to concentrate on normal road hazards and pedestrians crossing without having the additional worry about negotiating a pothole slalom course in this part of town. Well done Fergus.

Gurn Pothole watch - A96 continues to disintegrate between Grant's Garage and the King Street roundabout

View a full scale slide show here. Individual pictures here. Coming soon "A96 disintegration - Gurn Pothole watch - the Video!"

How to fill in a pot-hole

One of our regular readers speculated whether this picture on pothole news.co.uk was in an oblique way an apt comment on the Highland Council's staffing and budget issues? The only guy in the picture working is labelled 'bloke from Poland' but perhaps if it were religiously applied to Highland Council he could be called 'bloke about to be paid off'?

Pothole News is a very interesting site and worth book-marking for the future as many of Nairn's roads are already showing the signs of this winter's damage and the repairs from last year are also starting to fray at the edges.

"Potholesnews.co.uk is an independent website designed to help you, the motorist, assist your regional council, improve the state of your local roads and claim compensation if your vehicle has been damaged by potholes.

The UK motorist pours billions of pounds into the public purse through taxes, yet experts reckon there is an amazing £1 billion shortfall in funding for repairs. As a result, there is often a ‘patch and mend’ mentality when it comes to highway maintenance.

We just don’t think that is good enough and people are suffering from extra repair bills and sometimes even personal injury, simply because roads are not kept up to scratch."

There are some articles on the site dealing with Scottish pothole news, here's a piece from one of them: "South Ayrshire council have come to the realisation that they could be required to invest £90 million over the next few years to improve their road network to the point where it is up to the standards demanded by UK motorists."

One wonders what the Highland Council will need to keep its road network up to standard? Surely this will need central government intervention or our road network will simply fall to pieces and become unusable for ordinary cars? Where will the money come from however?

Gurn pothole watch

A pothole at the pedestrian crossing at the bottom of the brae

Billy reports potholes forming again between Grant's Garage and the roundabout. Watch your suspension and/or you step too! The one above is particularly nasty and might trip a walker crossing the road. It is expanding everyday and bits of tarmac shoot out every time a vehicle passes which adds to the unpleasantness of trying to cross the road in the current conditions.

Nairn's Biggest Pothole - The Cover-up begins!

It took quite a while to organise a cover-up for this mega pothole that is 3ft wide and 4ft deep. It appeared in Beech Avenue two weeks ago. The Inverness Courier claims it goes for a further seven feet under the road as well.

Gavin Mackintosh is quoted in the Courier, he contacted the newspaper after getting nowhere with the Council or the water authority:

' "They are blaming each other," he said. " I am at my wit's end. I have three kids. I cannot let them out. There are other children who play in the street and it is now the school holidays. They could climb into the hole and disappear."

Mr Mackintosh informed council officials he was alerting the Courier and within hours, workmen arrived at the scene to place a metal plate over the hole and erect barriers around it. "Nothing happened for two weeks but when the Courier was mentioned, something happened the same day," Mr Mackintosh revealed.'

A Gurn photographer who headed for the scene was not impressed with the state of the roads generally around the Beech Avenue area, one wonders how many of the wee potholes have the potential to copy this one?

Potholes - Do we need a 'jetpatcher' too?

Aberdeen has just got one, can Nairn have one too please? Here's more info on these wonderful vehicles.

'It was estimated that £100 million would be needed over the next 10 years to get Aberdeen’s routes fixed properly.' About the same for the roads in the Highland Council area too or more?

Potholes sorted

Gurned Wednesday night and sorted for the weekend. Well done Highland Council!

Country roads, taking you home?

Compared to some of the roads around Nairnshire perhaps the town hasn't got too much to complain about. Here's the scene on another station brae, or the brae down to where Auldearn station used to be to be more exact. Got any potholes near you? Send pictures of them to the Gurn. (Picture will enlarge a little)

Station brae - a midweek gurnfest special

The Station Brae is an unpleasant experience for both pedestrians and motorists these days. It is all the same a very busy route into town for both species. This route will become even busier when the relocation of the Lodgehill Clinic is completed. Now just as we gurned about the potholes on the Town Bridge, highlighting the dangers as motorists concentrate on missing potholes instead of other dangers (pedestrians on the narrow pavement for example), we'd like to point out that the same danger exists here from the disintegrating road surface.

In wet weather the pavement can be quite messy with soil dropping down from the parts of the wall where stones are missing. Another hazard on an already narrow pavement that pedestrians should not have to endure.

Here you can see how the beech hedge obscures part of the low bridge warning sign. In the spring new growth will obscure the sign completely. Beech grows very quickly and will soon hang down to hinder passage on the pavement unless it receives a severe trim this winter. This will have to take place before the birds start nesting too. All in all a bit of work for our cash-strapped local authority in putting this area right. This footpath can be dangerous at the best of times - surely it has to be a priority - even at a time when money is short?

Bridge potholes no more?

Bear tackle the A96 bridge potholes.

Gurn Potholes 2010

We've started Gurning to Fergus Ewing MSP about the state of the potholes on the town bridge. The Gurn will continue to do so from time to time when we come across other dangerous potholes on the roads in Nairnshire. You can find Gurn Potholes here on Flickr.

These holes on the bridge started forming before the recent cold spell and they should now be a priority as they are growing dramatically every day. Drivers are swerving to avoid them thus presenting another danger to pedestrians that use these paths everyday, many of those pedestrians being children. There's no shortage of potholes in the country now but surely the like of these on a trunk road in a town centre should be a priority?

Watch your suspension on the Town Bridge

The bad weather has meant that the pothole on the A96 bridge (to be seen on the way into town) has grown considerably. There are a few smaller ones too on the same side of the road closer to the turn off for Maggot Road.