Sheffield council selling off the maintenance of city roads

[Douglas J]

It seems the Labour council is going to literally sell the roads out from underneath us as they are incapable of maintaining them.

 

It will cost Sheffield an extra £10 million a year and mean a huge increase in borrowing. £10 million every year could fill in a lot of potholes.

[max]

We soon wont need a City Council, they have very little left to "council" if you know what I mean. They have sold the housing stock, school dinners, bins, school building etc. So what do they actually do. No need to answer!!!!

 

I was going to go into what you actually get from the council but then you added "no need to answer".

[sccsux]

I was going to go into what you actually get from the council but then you added "no need to answer".

 

Probably because the answer is "not a lot, really" as most of the services are not council run any more but are out-sourced which is, indeed, .

[Glennis]

I have no faith whatsoever in this being a great deal for the taxpayer, judging from past projects along similar lines I imagine this will have us over a contractual barrel and on the whole will serve little purpose but to enable the council to shirk any responsibility while leaving the investors plenty of room to screw the living daylights out of us (as per).

 

.....and why does it have to a 25year contract, seems a long time to be stuck with something when it inevitably turns bad.

 

I am in agreement with this post. This is a private finance initiative apparantly, and will probably be worse value for money for sheffield, than the world student games were.

[mapleboy]

On the basis that Street Farce (that's what they call themselves internally) have signally failed to maintain the city's roads due in part to the council underfunding highway maintenance consistently since 1986, a private contractor will make a huge improvement to the state of the roads.

 

Both remaining bidders, Carillion/Mouchel and Amey, are big players in highways, far more experienced than Street Force could ever aspire to be. Either will be highly competent, although Mouchel are in dire financial straits at the moment, so awarding the contract to them would probably not be too sensible at the moment. But we're talking Sheffield City Council here, so anything could happen. Amey have the Birmingham PFI and it's going very well AIUI. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

 

There are people who will be TUPEing across to the winner who are in for a very rude wake up call though - council attitudes aren't entirely appropriate in the private sector. There are a lot of folks who are looking either to retire or find themselves a nice hide-away at the council, being unwilling for a range of reasons to be privatised. IMHO those who do TUPE are in for a great time if they go into it with an open mind.

[airborne rat]

Great - yet another PFI - take out a mortgage where you pay several times over the actual cost of the infrastructure enhancement and maintenance works over the life of the contract.

[the_rudeboy]

Great - yet another PFI - take out a mortgage where you pay several times over the actual cost of the infrastructure enhancement and maintenance works over the life of the contract.

 

But what are the alternatives?

[airborne rat]

But what are the alternatives?

 

Not many at the moment - chronic underfunding and poor management of previous highway works in the city have left few options. The fact is, PFI's are not the way ahead.

[the_rudeboy]

Not many at the moment - chronic underfunding and poor management of previous highway works in the city have left few options. The fact is, PFI's are not the way ahead.

It's not ideal, but its either that or crumbling infrastructure for the foreseeable future.

[Hotmale 1954]

As long as the people doing it can do it better than Sheff Council did, I'd be very happy with it.