Thursday 13 August 2009

Call This A Roads Service?

The roads disservice in Northern Ireland - they call themselves the Roads Service - really are a hopeless lot. They apparently permit irresponsible contractors to dig up public roads, do an inadequate job of filling them in with tarmac, and forget about it.

I reported a sunken trench on the Holywood Road in east Belfast well over a month ago; and they actually agreed with me that, having inspected it, it was not acceptable.

We still have that sunken trench, one of many on the road.

Might I be permitted to make the roads disservice a little suggestion? Why don't they repair the damage themselves and send the contractor a comprehensive bill - on behalf of the taxpayer - for time, trouble and materials? Moreover, impose a reasonable deadline for the job to be completed; otherwise sue them.

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

Certainly a good suggestion. The Water Service had a service level agreement with their contractors built in to the contract to ensure repairs were carried out within a certain time period. Perhaps the roads service could do the same. The problem however is it is difficult to police and prove when SLAs have been breached unless these calls of complaints are logged and monitored. Im not sure if roads service have such a system in place to monitor when the complaint was first received and when it is reported repaired.