Road contractor 'failing to keep on top of the basics' says county councillor (From Watford Observer)
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Road contractor, Ringway, 'failing to keep on top of the basics' says Councillor Steven Giles-Medhurst
10:50am Tuesday 22nd January 2013 in News
By Ben Endley, Senior reporter
A Watford politician has hit out at the performance of Hertfordshire County Council’s new £220 million highways contractor just four months into the seven year contract.
Ringway signed a contract with the council to maintain the county’s 3,000 miles of roads and pavements from October 2012 until 2019.
The deal is expected to earn them £35 million in the first year alone.
But residents have been left frustrated at a perceived increase in the amount of potholes on the county’s roads and the time it takes to repair them.
In an open letter to Councillor Stuart Pile, executive member for highways and transport, Watford and Oxhey county councillor, Steven Giles-Medhurst attacks the quality of work done so far by Ringway and accused them of "failing to keep on top of the basics".
Councillor Pile said hazardous potholes should be temporarily repaired within 24 hours of them being reported but added permanent repairs were preferable.
Lib Dem group leader, Councillor Giles-Medhurst said: "Despite assurances given before the award of the contract, it seems that we are not getting value for money.
"Ringway are failing to keep on top of the basics, namely the job of maintaining our roads and footways.
"With a cold snap forecast and a backlog of potholes it seems that the situation will only get worse and if it does then the county council will have been caught short yet again - unless there is a dramatic improvement in the next week."
The amount paid to Ringway each year is dependent on performance but Councillor Giles-Medhurst said he expects the full value of the contract over the next seven years to be £220 million.
He added "The experience that my group, and I understand other county councillors and certainly residents, have been having, has led us to question Ringway’s performance and its ability to carry out the scope and scale of these works.
"I am sure the experiences that my group have been having while serving 17 county divisions is mirrored in other areas to judge from newspaper reports I have seen."
Ringway took over the contract, replacing an Amey Lafarge joint venture and Mouchel as highways contractor in October 2012 but Councillor Giles-Medhurst says there is still confusion about what their responsibilities are.
He said: "I would also say that my group are greatly perturbed that not only do Ringway appear unable to fulfil fully what we expect of them but they appear to be trying to pass the buck in some instances, saying things are not in their contract/for them to do.
"An example here appears to be that they don’t appear to know they should be fixing flood problems."
Neither Councillor Pile nor Ringway could be reached for comment at time of publication.
Comments(14)
crazyfrog
says...
11:01am Tue 22 Jan 13
TRT
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11:17am Tue 22 Jan 13
I wouldn't care so much if we weren't paying for a service, but we are and they are boasting about the contract in the various trade and national media. It's considered a highly lucrative contract, it seems. I can see why - you don't actually have to do the job, just take the money and run with it.
MarsLander
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11:31am Tue 22 Jan 13
Did the county have one of these contracts? One suspects not.
Contractors often rely on the things left out of a contract by accident to make huge profits as "extra jobs".
garston tony
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12:33pm Tue 22 Jan 13
HCC highways werent exactly brilliant, if this lot are worse then goodness help road and pavement users!
E.Coli
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12:54pm Tue 22 Jan 13
TRT
says...
1:03pm Tue 22 Jan 13
Maybe it's that one on the M25 which was reported yesterday? It comes to something when the local newspaper runs a story about a pothole actually being filled. No, hang on, that'll be the Highways Agency.
No, sorry, I've drawn a blank on that one.
not a regular
says...
3:16pm Tue 22 Jan 13
Ringway are even worse than Mouchel at managing a contract.
Managing 3,000 miles of roads is extremely difficult.
Most local authorities outside of the TfL road network will struggle as sub bases are failing (caused a lot of the time by outdated water pipes and whoever else had the contract before them) and there just isn’t the resources available to repair to a sustainable level, only repair to the surfacing as that is what the public is after and essentially what wins and loses contracts.
Most councils can’t just “bring it in house” without initially investing about £1m per 500 miles and of course a depot to store the machinery and materials, not to mention the staff and their local government pensions.
The most cost effective method of pothole repair is to fill ‘em temporarily and then come back at a later date and do a batch of proper reinstatements (unfortunately this is rarely done, or at least rarely done properly).
Asphalt should be laid in warm (i.e. day), dry (i.e. 10 days a year) conditions and left for ~2 hours (i.e. over night) before reopening to traffic. The public complain when it’s done during the day because their journey takes 3 minutes longer, they also complain it takes too long to do even if it’s snowing and raining. They also complain that it fails or costs too much when the works are undertaken at night time in the cold and rain while they are tucked up in bed.
The Highways department will not have enough resources to check the quality of reactive maintenance reinstatements and unfortunately have to hope that the contractor is doing a good job. Having an engineer out on a day’s pay (plus travel expenses, plus any night works) to check £500 worth of works is not going to work out in the long term. Spot checks might work too, but it’s usually the stuff below the surface that needs to be properly installed.
TRT
says...
3:23pm Tue 22 Jan 13
not a regular
says...
4:16pm Tue 22 Jan 13
TRT wrote:I don't know a great deal about the Herts contract but I would imagine the street lighting is done via a different contractor altogether.
I'm sure there was news recently of investment in a machine which makes pothole repair much, much quicker and more effective. You don't address why there are so many failed streetlights going unrepaired either. I appreciate that a little understanding goes a long way, so thank you for the comment, but it doesn't explain away this ridiculous drop in service delivery since September (I know they took over in October, but I have documented evidence about some streetlights that were reported 3rd September 2012 and are STILL out of order).
I'm not condoning the poor service at all, by the way, there is clearly a lot of wasted resources and weak personalities at Herts CC.
A site agent isn't going to deliver value for money if he doesn't have to, contractors are incredibly clever at knowing what they can and can't get away with, and how to do it. It needs strong representation at managerial level that poor performance will not be tolerated.
Whether it is a missed clause in the contract or poor delivery, we will probably never know!
Mohandas
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8:14pm Tue 22 Jan 13
TRT
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10:57pm Tue 22 Jan 13
Not even then it seems.
crazyfrog
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3:17pm Wed 23 Jan 13
not a regular wrote:Good post, am i wrong in assuming HCC used to do this work in-house so therefore would of had the infrastructure already in place?
As someone who works in the industry I would just like to list a few points: Ringway are even worse than Mouchel at managing a contract. Managing 3,000 miles of roads is extremely difficult. Most local authorities outside of the TfL road network will struggle as sub bases are failing (caused a lot of the time by outdated water pipes and whoever else had the contract before them) and there just isn’t the resources available to repair to a sustainable level, only repair to the surfacing as that is what the public is after and essentially what wins and loses contracts. Most councils can’t just “bring it in house” without initially investing about £1m per 500 miles and of course a depot to store the machinery and materials, not to mention the staff and their local government pensions. The most cost effective method of pothole repair is to fill ‘em temporarily and then come back at a later date and do a batch of proper reinstatements (unfortunately this is rarely done, or at least rarely done properly). Asphalt should be laid in warm (i.e. day), dry (i.e. 10 days a year) conditions and left for ~2 hours (i.e. over night) before reopening to traffic. The public complain when it’s done during the day because their journey takes 3 minutes longer, they also complain it takes too long to do even if it’s snowing and raining. They also complain that it fails or costs too much when the works are undertaken at night time in the cold and rain while they are tucked up in bed. The Highways department will not have enough resources to check the quality of reactive maintenance reinstatements and unfortunately have to hope that the contractor is doing a good job. Having an engineer out on a day’s pay (plus travel expenses, plus any night works) to check £500 worth of works is not going to work out in the long term. Spot checks might work too, but it’s usually the stuff below the surface that needs to be properly installed.
TRT
says...
9:44am Mon 28 Jan 13
crazyfrog says...
10:58am Tue 22 Jan 13