SIR, - For the umpteenth time our mean-minded killjoy government has rejected Sir Alan Beith’s (and everyone else’s) call for dualling the A1 throughout Northumberland; Minister Tom Harris (who?) lists four spurious criteria for doing nothing about it.
The fifth criterion, of course, is that the territory through which the A1 runs in its semi-rural state includes Berwickshire and nowhere in this area is represented by New Labour.
It is unfair that despite almost 35 years service Sir Alan is not rewarded in the same way as 28 years service by another MP/MSP with almost all the A1 in East Lothian being dualled - something to do with red being preferred to yellow maybe


is this weeks star letter in the Berwickshire News

Joy apparently equates with the ability to speed through Northumberland!With great respect to the writer (name available for the curious) I an not sure how Sir A Beith, a MP for a (still) English constituency has any standing in rural Berwickshire matters? Its good to see the reference to the Labour MP later MSP for East Lothian who was 'rewarded,says the writer, for years of devoted committment to the party by being awarded the 'duelling' of those parts of the A1 which went through his constituency. Alert bloggees will recognise this paragon to be the Laird, only recently retired from East Lothian after what amounted to Peerless service (Bad Pun Intended) It should be remembered that before going to EL the Laird was MP slightly closer home-including 'rural Berwickshire' but when the constituency was split in two he skedaddled up North to avoid having to take on the Lib Dems. Wisely as it proved. But while there as the incumbent MP, the A1 remained resolutely unduelled-Red being as useless as Yellow.

It seems

(The image is of a Scottish Road. Probably not the A! but could well be in 'rural Berwickshire')

Labels: A1, Berwickshire, Roads, the Laird

  ¶ 10:34 AM (0) comments

  Tar Tar For Now


There must be some cash still swilling around in the Scottish Borders Roads' budget for FY 2007/8 as there is a sudden rush of pothole filling going on in these here parts. Quite often the budget for repairs is exhausted by July -or so we used to be told when we wanted a quick repair job done. But now road gangs (not usually chained together) are out and about. To my eye the technique seems Third World-or perhaps not quite as advanced. Take one small lorry. Add a couple of blokes. Issue them with small buckets full of steaming tar. Ask them to fill in all available potholes, crumbled edges and other impurities within, say, fifty yards (having thoughtfully partially blocked the carriageway with an arrangement of barrels and old planks. Traffic lights optional.

Once holes filled, add loose sand and chippings- watch for a bit-its more interesting than paint drying, go off for dinner. This is not always hazard free. I noticed yesterday having just driven past a TOA (Tarring Operation Area) the lorry reversing away from the barrel/plank protection barrier straight into two large tar filled potholes scooping out the contents. Back to the pails but after dinner wll do.

Third World methodology, First World weather. Hand filled pot holes in tropical Zambia dry and sort of seal in a couple of hours. In the damp cold Merse they are as liquid at 5pm as they were at 11am. Lads off for tea and end of the working day. Up with the planks and the barrels. The open road is open again.

First tractor along b******S up the lot.

Mind you if you rolled them?

Labels: Roads, Scottish Borders

  ¶ 10:55 AM (0) comments

 
Berwickshire Red Light District

Sorry Randy of Reston this is about roads. Specifically the Borders Council's Roads Dept: aka Having the life of Riley. All Autumn and early winter, snug inside the St Boswells HQ, or the Dinger sub office; endless cups of teas, a few hands of cards, wall to wall digital, glued to Al Jazeera and chuckling at all those plaintive appeals from wretched community councils asking them to fix potholes, drain flooding, repair verges. There is no Arabic word for maintenance I was once told by an Oriental scholar and I sometimes wonder if we do not have the same hiatus in Border Council officialese, 'Send them the usual response' yells, Roadsman Billy-'No funds until next financial year' (first used each late July)

Then come late January: the first mild day, financial constraints are tossed aside and the road gangs (not, here, chained together) are dispatched to all corners of the Merse: Operation Red Light. Teams of no more than three workmen (to ensure a maximum job time) two large trucks to carry same, and two traffic light sets per operation. Modus Operandi:Block half the road width; dig a hole behind red and white barrier and assorted cones and erect lights at either end of the working area whether it is 5 feet or five hundred yards long. The lights are ingenious and are of two main categories: One: the slow changing variety: leaving you staring at a red light for twenty minutes, protecting a small hole and two sandwich boxes with the wide empty road stretching beyond for 1.5 miles. Mark Two: the light that is always green as you approach it from a mile away and suddenly goes Red (No Orangemen to bother about around here) when you are fifty yards away. The twenty minute rule then applies. If you are the second car in the queue you need your acceleration skills to be finely honed. Once the light is green you have 1.8 seconds to get past it before it goes red again and you have to hope that Farmer Stuart Mc Blogg ahead is not dreaming of his next Holiday in the Seychelles and is quick off the mark to give you a decent chance of following him lawfully. There is actually a third specimen-fortunately rare, but spotted around Leithholm, with a long Amber light after the 29 minute Red and just as you let out your clutch it goes Red again.

I went through three of these assault courses to day in a (roundabout)journey of about 12 miles. Should't complain as the pot holes are fearsome, the verges mutilated and the drainage blocked. And it brings some cheer into the drab lives of the roadsmen who can chuckle at the increasing rage and frustration of seething motorists held up on empty roads while old potholes are lingeringly filled and new ones painstakingly excavated. The trick is to keep the good work going until 5 April, shoulder their spades, dismantle their lights and say with some truth. : 'Work well done and that's next years road maintenance allocation

exhausted already.'

FY2008/9 will be a good one for cards.

(Image is inspired by that famous Road Movie with its theme song: There's a corner of some roadsman's lounge which will be always the B6460)

Labels: Merse, Red light district, Roads

  ¶ 11:23 AM (0) comments