I think the point is that while owned by Daniels brothers and family the road was not properly maintained. It was probably a massive cash cow for a number of years until so badly deteriorated that ownership became a liability. It was then time to place the ownership where the original owners could not be held to account.
Interesting question - if you own a road and hadn't 'accidentally' sold it to a company that instantly went bankrupt, are you in the clear if you set up a set of bollards (or similar impassable items) making it impassable? It'd be a tragedy if that happened and the council had to adopt the road in a hurry to allow traffic through.
Or alternatively a toll booth. It's your road, after all.
I'm surprised prospective councillors, MPs and others aren't regularly campaigning about this, getting the classic picture of politicians glumly pointing at potholes!
The circumstances surrounding the sale of the road look highly suspect to me. Those who consider it the job of a Local Authority to lamely take on the liabilities of those wishing to evade them, may want to have a quiet word with themselves.
I ended up sympathising more with the Daniels than I expected here. If the council want to use the road as if it were adopted but then refuse to actually adopt it and leave it to the Daniels and their tenants to pay for its upkeep then I can understand their approach!
Me too! I assume the council is stuck because it probably had a lot of funds cut so decided to not adopt it then but is only going to have to adopt it later in a shabbier state with much more work and cost required in the long run! Residents must spend a lot on tyres and shock absorbers!
I suspect the council didn’t adopt as the construction condition is far below adoptable standard and probably always was. Given the amount of HGV traffic the costs of bringing it up are likely astronomical, and those frontages would go berserk if they got landed with the bill via S228. Having been on the other side refusing requests to adopt private streets I can sympathise with CBC in not wanting the rate payers to be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Though they probably should have secured a S38/S278 when they started approving all the adjoining developments.
This is a result of local politics moving from "Get the bins collected and make sure the roads are ok" to people who want to signal their wokeness and bleat constantly about Climate Change, Ukraine, LGBT+ and Gaza.
And it is the local people's fault, they keep voting for the same moronic parties that couldn't give a flying one about them or their area.
The Council will eventually adopt the road, it will be fixed and no more will be said about it. But don't expect it to happen until a local election is due, then things will happen
Oh look, a substantive article about something that could actually be fixed and a right-wing troll/bot has shown up to make it into a culture war issue about LGTB.
"The Council will eventually adopt the road, it will be fixed and no more will be said about it. But don't expect it to happen until a local election is due, then things will happen"
I think there's some kind of power for a council to do an unopposed compulsory purchase order on land like this.. and it would also look like a relevant use of Community Infrastructure Levy (the funding that councils get from developers - but which can only be used for limited purposes) to fix up.
I believe so, and it’s not clear why they won’t use it. My best guess from reading around is that in order to adopt a road it has to be up to a certain level of condition maybe? But it doesn’t help that they won’t say anything about their actual reasoning.
The reason they won't adopt it is because they will have to spend money to bring it up to the required standard and then maintain it thereafter. In an era of austerity they'd be mad to do it.
It's pretty mystifying. It's a pretty common scenario for councils not to want to take on extra maintenance and safety liabilities for pretty marginal roads on industrial estates, housing developments etc. But it makes zero sense when it's part of their own transport strategy, and by the sounds of it they could have bought it without CPO for buttons. It can only be either 1) once they have responsibility the condition is so bad that it would cost £££ that they don't have to sort it out or 2) simple rank incompetence / computer-says-no brain.
Seems like their budget is likely the reason? Central Bedfordshire Council spent 15.1mn of reserves last year - that’s a ~5% deficit, and they’ve apparently cut running costs by £185mn over the last 15 years (which is a lot when the current budget is £265mn).
In that context the council is probably not in a position to take on any other costs, irrespective of how important they are.
It's the reason I referenced CIL (although not all councils collect it - I don't know if Central Bedfordshire is one of these). That can't be used for general expenditure and has to be used to deliver capital projects.
Yes agree, though they will presumably have various calls on CIL from all sorts of other capital projects already, so the basic issue of not having enough to go around still stands. Plus there may well be distinctions between the upfront capital cost, which they might use CIL for, and ongoing liability, which CIL maybe can't be used for - I'm not sure. (Not to say I agree FWIW, but there at least a certain rationality in not taking on new liabilities when you can't pay for the ones you already have.)
Cracking tale, and beautifully told. If only British businesses and local government showed 10% of the ingenuity they use in shedding unwanted obligations on, say, better products and services.
I think the point is that while owned by Daniels brothers and family the road was not properly maintained. It was probably a massive cash cow for a number of years until so badly deteriorated that ownership became a liability. It was then time to place the ownership where the original owners could not be held to account.
Nice work if you can get it.🤨
Interesting question - if you own a road and hadn't 'accidentally' sold it to a company that instantly went bankrupt, are you in the clear if you set up a set of bollards (or similar impassable items) making it impassable? It'd be a tragedy if that happened and the council had to adopt the road in a hurry to allow traffic through.
Or alternatively a toll booth. It's your road, after all.
I'm surprised prospective councillors, MPs and others aren't regularly campaigning about this, getting the classic picture of politicians glumly pointing at potholes!
The circumstances surrounding the sale of the road look highly suspect to me. Those who consider it the job of a Local Authority to lamely take on the liabilities of those wishing to evade them, may want to have a quiet word with themselves.
I ended up sympathising more with the Daniels than I expected here. If the council want to use the road as if it were adopted but then refuse to actually adopt it and leave it to the Daniels and their tenants to pay for its upkeep then I can understand their approach!
Me too! I assume the council is stuck because it probably had a lot of funds cut so decided to not adopt it then but is only going to have to adopt it later in a shabbier state with much more work and cost required in the long run! Residents must spend a lot on tyres and shock absorbers!
I suspect the council didn’t adopt as the construction condition is far below adoptable standard and probably always was. Given the amount of HGV traffic the costs of bringing it up are likely astronomical, and those frontages would go berserk if they got landed with the bill via S228. Having been on the other side refusing requests to adopt private streets I can sympathise with CBC in not wanting the rate payers to be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Though they probably should have secured a S38/S278 when they started approving all the adjoining developments.
This is a result of local politics moving from "Get the bins collected and make sure the roads are ok" to people who want to signal their wokeness and bleat constantly about Climate Change, Ukraine, LGBT+ and Gaza.
And it is the local people's fault, they keep voting for the same moronic parties that couldn't give a flying one about them or their area.
The Council will eventually adopt the road, it will be fixed and no more will be said about it. But don't expect it to happen until a local election is due, then things will happen
Really? The Tory led Central Bedfordshire council is too woke for you
Get a grip you right wing reactionary troll.
Oh look, a substantive article about something that could actually be fixed and a right-wing troll/bot has shown up to make it into a culture war issue about LGTB.
You didn't read what I wrote?
"The Council will eventually adopt the road, it will be fixed and no more will be said about it. But don't expect it to happen until a local election is due, then things will happen"
No surprise there.
I think there's some kind of power for a council to do an unopposed compulsory purchase order on land like this.. and it would also look like a relevant use of Community Infrastructure Levy (the funding that councils get from developers - but which can only be used for limited purposes) to fix up.
I believe so, and it’s not clear why they won’t use it. My best guess from reading around is that in order to adopt a road it has to be up to a certain level of condition maybe? But it doesn’t help that they won’t say anything about their actual reasoning.
The reason they won't adopt it is because they will have to spend money to bring it up to the required standard and then maintain it thereafter. In an era of austerity they'd be mad to do it.
It's pretty mystifying. It's a pretty common scenario for councils not to want to take on extra maintenance and safety liabilities for pretty marginal roads on industrial estates, housing developments etc. But it makes zero sense when it's part of their own transport strategy, and by the sounds of it they could have bought it without CPO for buttons. It can only be either 1) once they have responsibility the condition is so bad that it would cost £££ that they don't have to sort it out or 2) simple rank incompetence / computer-says-no brain.
Seems like their budget is likely the reason? Central Bedfordshire Council spent 15.1mn of reserves last year - that’s a ~5% deficit, and they’ve apparently cut running costs by £185mn over the last 15 years (which is a lot when the current budget is £265mn).
In that context the council is probably not in a position to take on any other costs, irrespective of how important they are.
£450m down to £265m maybe does point to the real reason doesn't it - as with so many 'why doesn't the council do x/y/z?' issues
It's the reason I referenced CIL (although not all councils collect it - I don't know if Central Bedfordshire is one of these). That can't be used for general expenditure and has to be used to deliver capital projects.
Yes agree, though they will presumably have various calls on CIL from all sorts of other capital projects already, so the basic issue of not having enough to go around still stands. Plus there may well be distinctions between the upfront capital cost, which they might use CIL for, and ongoing liability, which CIL maybe can't be used for - I'm not sure. (Not to say I agree FWIW, but there at least a certain rationality in not taking on new liabilities when you can't pay for the ones you already have.)
Cracking tale, and beautifully told. If only British businesses and local government showed 10% of the ingenuity they use in shedding unwanted obligations on, say, better products and services.
Random thought- if the King now owns it, can't he pay for it to be fixed as a "gift to his loyal subjects"? Seems like an easy PR win if nothing else
No idea, I’ll WhatsApp him.
No need. I presume he subscribes.