Road repairs

I bet the Vale of Glamorgan Council are just loving this arctic weather (apart from their worries about grit supplies of course, oh, and that they can't collect refuse and recycling). Apart from anything else it gives them an excuse about the state of the roads, with all this freezing weather creating more and more potholes etc.

Actually, I wrote to them weeks before Christmas, in an act that my son saw as confirmation that I've turned into a proper grumpy old git of Victor Meldrew proportions (I knew that years ago).

There's a short stretch of road between Barry and Dinas Powys - the A4055 - which carries a large amount of traffic. The road isn't great, but it's not the worst surface I've ever travelled on. Anyway, back in the autumn, a few small holes had appeared, and the council in their wisdom decided to resurface the road. Now this wasn't proper warts and all resurface, it was a "top dressing". You know, chuck down a bit of tar, stick some gravelly stuff on it, stick up a few "Loose Chippings" signs, and every-thing's ticketyboo.

Except it wasn't. Within a couple of weeks, this dressed surface had started to fall apart, and as we moved towards Christmas it became quite shocking. As a law abiding tax payer of the area, I felt justified in writing to said council to complain. A couple of days later I got a phone call from someone who understood I wanted to complain about the pot-holes in the street where I live. "No" I said patiently, and gave them the story. They said "Oh, not my department we'll get someone to get back to you" or words to that effect. Needless to say, no one ever did.

Now, after the weather we've had over the last few weeks, the road's gone from shocking to appalling.

Quite how the council can justify spending whatever they did on it, for it to be 20 times worse within a couple of months is quite beyond me. Poor weather aside, the initial job was clearly way sub-standard, and it really pisses me off that they don't seem to have to answer for it.

If anyone from the VOGC is listening, or reading (not much chance I guess, they're all out gritting (ha ha)), perhaps they'd like to give me a rebate on my council tax.