Leading by example.....

Good to hear that Manchester City Council leader, Richard Leese was out and about on his bike last week...

This from "The Leader's Blog"

"Back on my bike this week for the first time since Christmas and a frighteningly close view of the cracks and holes that have appeared in the road surface along my normal route as a result of frost damage. Our Highways people are out inspecting the whole road network and will be putting a remediation plan together but an early estimate is that the extra repair work will cost at least £650,000.

The total additional cost of the freeze is likely to be well over a £1M but we won't be increasing Council Tax or cutting other things to pay for it. Manchester has followed a prudent budget course for many years keeping Council Tax increases to at or below the rate of inflation and making sure we have adequate reserves to cover occasions just such as this."

I am glad to hear that the Highways officers are out and about checking the roads but as an earlier post on this blog has highlighted there is a lack of consistency across Greater Manchester on the criteria used to decide which potholes will be repaired. (See When is a 'pothole' actionable?)

Manchester's criteria for deciding when to repair a pothole is 30mm (eg the pothole must be at least 30mm deep) which is not bad when compared to Salford's (50mm) but not as good as Wigan's 25mm.  Perhaps the new GM Integrated Transport Authority could take on the task of standardizing the size of potholes that cyclists have to avoid!

If you are out and about in Manchester and spot a pothole why not drop a line to "Environment on Call" - you never know they may have missed one!

Environment On Call can be contacted by:
email: contact@manchester.gov.uk
tel: 0161 954 9000
or via the Manchester City Council website reporting form.

Happy pothole spotting!

The criteria used by the 10 GM councils: 50mm (Salford), 40mm (Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford), 35mm (Rochdale), 30mm (Manchester),   25mm (Wigan).
Photo credit: Crumspall Labour blog (October 2007).