The system that approves this sort of thing, and some of the individuals in charge do need to be held to account. Edit, I wouldlike to see a follow up with the council responsible justifying the expense and procedures.
Hi Jon, I was the person who single-handedly campained to Central Bedfordshire Council , the BBC and the wider media about keeping the footbridge. The plan was to remove it to install a surface level crossing like on the other three arms. The bridge is used extstensively by residents and visitors to the woods every day and it's removal would have been a very real safety concern for all the schoolkids using it to get to the rest of the village during rush hours. Thanks god it didnt happen. And this project was approved in the name of the 'Levelling up' scheme.. one meant for deprived regions of the UK. Clophill has the highest ratio of Ferraris per capita in Bedfordshire and couldn't be further away from the real need!! .. and despite promises from the council and the civil engineering company that carried it out - it's full of flaws and a complete waste of money..as you correctly identified - but since when did that get in the way of an infrastructure project just for the sake of it..?
council ..... you appoint yes men once in a while but the useless shower of shyte who come up with reasons to have yes men remain in their high paid jobs regardless
Why does everything have to be a conspiracy theory about dodgy dealing? Is it because the reality is boring and mundane? This is what happens when decisions are taken by committees with no direct accountability. That such prominence is given to relatively pointless features is purely down to incompetence, a reluctance to challenge others and poor decision making. It is just UK civil bureaucracy doing what it does best. Lots of well meaning people doing their best in a restrictive and risk averse working environment. You’re welcome!
@@Tobester1043 If you think rampant governmental corruption at both a local and national level is a "conspiracy theory" at this point, then you've either not been paying any attention or are intentionally poisoning the well.
I was once told by an eminent QC that you cant make an incompetence or negligence case stick against a council or its staff because the bar is set so low in terms of expectation.
I live local to here, and for the last decade or so, developers have been trying to get planning permission to build thousands of houses between Silsoe and Barton-Le-Clay (which is just south off this roundabout on the A6). Said planning permission is extremely unwanted by all local residents. One of the reasons the planning permission keeps being refused is due to the surrounding infrastructure not being able to cope with the added road/footpath traffic. I wouldn't be surprised if this upgrade was done to allow this planning permission to go forward next time it is submitted!
almost certain Humphrey Appleby talked on the growth of government being only measure of success that government counts. (yes yes it was farce but it is scary how well it still fits 4 decades later - i can not get past the fact its no longer 90s apparently)
@@nameless5413 Yes, I worked with the CS for some years and they are exactly that. Greedy, incompetent and with a disdain for the taxpayer which is sickening.
What angers is that they find money for these , yet our council closed a popular swimming pool because they said they could not afford £75K to repair the roof.
As a frequent user of the White Elephant roundabout I can absolutely confirm, I have never seen flooding at this roundabout. It also does not seem to have changed traffic what so ever, except the customary delays while the works were in place.
I couldn't even guess how many times I've used this roundabout, and even in the heaviest storms, I've never seen it flooded, even when the river right next to it is higher than usual.
I drive over this roundabout multiple times per day and can confirm the new improvements have 100% made it worse. I’m a truck driver and require more space when driving round roundabouts - when it was 1 lane to enter roundabout it was much safer. Now i have cars trying to squeeze up the inside of me to overtake on the roundabout then cut me off…
Based on my observations as a night HGV driver the biggest cost of any Road improvement is the setting out and removal of thousands of road cones 10 miles from and 5 miles after one bloke working on the road. This excludes the two guys in a van at every possible entry onto the 15 mile speed restricted cone filled empty carriageway.
You are forgetting the extremely strenuous and lengthy public outreach campaign including advertising market research and branding that they promptly ignore.
And let’s not forget the MONTHS of traffic chaos at this busy interchange while these roadworks were completed. A detriment to any business in the area that had to suffer this nonsense.
I live in Central Bedfordshire and can confirm this was a complete was of time and money and hasn’t improved anything. Love your videos. Keep up the great work.
Absolutely loved this video, everything spot on! Extra tidbits about this from a local: The 'traffic survey' prior to planning the changes was carried out during covid lockdowns. "It's not very busy," said the council. "NO SH*T, WE'RE ALL CONFINED TO OUR HOMES," said those with more than one braincell to share between them. Yes, they literally carried out their official checks and paid people to sit and count (no) traffic while the country were under house arrest. The huge unused pathway that's almost wide enough for a car, goes up towards an unused crossing (near petrol station) required the clearing of a huge amount of trees, where they built a temporary site office, clearing all the land up to an old bridge. Rather than expand the road and pathway to use up this cleared area and improve traffic flow, they left it barren and in fact have NARROWED the road at this side of the junction, making it worse than it was. The plans changed so much. It could have been excellent, but it was cut back and fumbled and honestly deserves every white elephant placed there. Also, regarding the footbridge, the plan by central beds was to ignore the locals who fought and argued, and demolish the bridge anyway. Fortunately, they ran out of money so couldn't do what they planned and left the bridge.
Never thought I'd see Clophill's roundabout on here! It's an absolute nightmare coming off the A507 towards Shefford as they've added in two lanes to go straight on when you're coming from the west side, but it immediately merges into one lane on the east side. Not once seen anyone use the traffic lights on the south side, though given the speeds people do approaching the A6 from there, it's probably no wonder. Bedfordshire's not had much luck with traffies this past year though - they installed a new set by Doolittle Mill on the Flitwick/Ampthill border a few months back, and before the week was up a tree fell down and rendered them useless. Whole county seems to be in a constant state of temporary lights tbh.
I feel like he often ignores the time it takes to build these things and how that impacts traffic, and only focuses on how traffic is before the project started and after the project was done. But during the construction is also very important, especially when it's that long.
As a local retired resident i no longer use the roundabout to commute however a regular commuter has said traffic flow has inproved however as a rate payer had i been told £7million would be spent i would have asked for something a lot slicker than what we have got.
Having once been a local Borough Councillor that was expelled from the party for voting against a motion, made worse for them as a hung council. The amount of money spent on consultants and feasibility studies was mind blowing, the results often ignored and the party's own scheme was passed, often causing more problems than it was designed to fix.
Have a look at jcn 14 on the M5, they spent over 1.5 million on traffic lights for peak traffic, but now turn them off at peak times because of the chaos it causes, but leave them on at off peak times when they were never needed in the first place, over 15 years ago!!!!
Some years ago a roundabout on the Buckingham bypass was "improved", the work caused mayhem for a long time as it took longer than expected. As soon as it opened it was immediately apparent that the junction had been made worse and work soon started to amend the design , this took another two years to complete. I have no idea how much that all cost. I suspect that the Buckinghamshire roundabout designers quietly moved to nearby Bedfordshire to continue their wicked ways.
Know that roundabout only too well, so it was the same idiot designers who made, was it 2 or 3, attempts at the Black Cat roundabout, they completely screwed that one up as well, then they moved onto the A1 Biggleswade south roundabout which is oval not round, set at the wrong angle and awful heading north as the entry is far too tight. Then Clophill....... Where next for these geniuses - retirement on their £50K pensions?
i drove on it the other day and wandered what the hell they spent all that time doing when working on it. its mostly the same as it was and just as busy.
I used to commute to bedford up the A6, it was terrible before the works and nothings changed, never seen it flood - for extra sh*ts & giggles they also closed one the A6 lanes coming in to clophill - so the tale backs reach all the way to the top of deadmans hill.
The A507 has always been a very busy rat run between the A1 at Stotfold and Milton Keynes which is a single carriageway along its entire length. Anyway, when I go that way, I avoid the route and cut through Hitchin, Barton-le-Clay, Harlington and join the M1 at J12 at Toddington rather than J13 which also has to accommodate the end of the Bedford Bypass. Another bypass was added near to Ridgmont some time later but that was only when Centre Parcs had opened its Woburn Forest holiday camp. It was upgraded where it bypassed several towns and villages in the 1980's and 1990's on its Eastern end at Stotford, Arlessey and Shefford but the central portion where this is located on it its original route and the bridge over the railway had been to be strengthened over Arlessey station a few years back as it had structural problems.
Oh don't worry, it never gets "wasted". You're just not paying for what you thought you were. In reality, the money goes to funding the retirements of the friends and family of one or more people with influence on the council, who just so happen to be in the business of implementing whatever wacky scheme said council have come up with.
I save myself from getting too stressed about it by thinking of it as money that has been 'reintroduced into the economy' but don't dwell too long on where that might be.
All too common unfortunately. Maybe it's linked to the theory that if a council doesn't use up all its allocated budget in a year, then it's deemed not to need as much in the year to come. So they spend every last penny on whatever they can. Loony economics, but there you go...
As this project took one year to complete it allowed the council to reduce the lanes onto the nellieabout to one causing even more traffic chaos for all that time. I enjoyed queuing 25 minutes to get into Clophill so it was worth the whole Seven Million.
Those local schools that don't exist are the only schools in the entire country under budget, with class sizes below target numbers, with 0 days off from pupils, and 0 failures on tests and exams!
Lincolnshire County Council spent a similar figure in 2021, altering Holdingham Roundabout on the A17, following years of congestion after the plans to dual carriageway the road from Newark to Kings Lynn were cancelled. The improvements have made no difference to the tailbacks on the A17 through route, with queues of up to a mile recorded at peak times. There is admittedly a slight improvements for local traffic in the rush hour, though this is more than negated by the delays caused by the traffic signals at quieter times. Who ever though it was a good idea to end a dual carriageway at a roundabout... 🙄
I would LOVE to know what students of town and highway planning get taught during their degrees (assuming they have any relevant qualifications at all) - they are all completely hopeless! However, i suspect that a healthy proportion of the 7 mill was spent on consultancy fees for the pre-requisite traffic surveys and alternative schemes.
Hello Jon. If you think Bedfordshire council has created a white elephant then Norfolk county council can trump that with it's absolute farce of a project on the A1074 heading into Norwich. Not only did the residents object to the creation of bus lanes for only 2 buses an hour and the buses hub that only one service will use, but it has also added a small 400yrd bus lane out of the city to improve congestion where there has never been any. All this money came from the government apparently but everyone says it could have been spent more wisely. We said no but they've done it anyway and it's taken a year so far and still not finished.
The real kicker is during the consultation phase they had options for a few far more effective solutions which they didn't go for in the end due to being "too expensive" only then to go ahead and spend £7million on this.
I used this roundabout a heck of a lot during its "construction/refurbishment" only used it once since completion... I saw no difference in terms of speed getting through/around the roundabout or the queues of traffic.... a massive improvement for sure
Actually, reducing the speed limit in responce to high non-compliance with the existing speed limit is a really stupid thing to do, especially when the A507 here is a bypass presumably designed for a 40mph speed limit.
Hi Jon. You should try the M42 (J6)/A45 work for size. Another exanple of 'improvements' that have been happening for years with nothing seemingly improved. They're now been constructing an additional link road from M42 Northbound to Birmingham airport. Costing an arm and a leg and destroying several businesses in the meantime. AND this new link will merely dump its participants on to the existing roundabout (once known as the Clock Roundabout) with little or no improvements. Heaven only knows what the area will look like when (if!) the HS2 Interchange area is open.
Oh my. If it wasn’t so wasteful it would be hilarious. Oh wait a minute. It is anyway. I bet som council nuftie got a huge financial pay on the back too. Great video as per usual mate. Love you long time. :-)
I used to travel this roundabout every work day for 10 years. It never flooded! The surrounding meadows did during the winter months. The worst water on the roundabout was following heavy rain causing standing water on half the exit lane to Ampthill. I suspect fitting proper drains to the roundabout would have solved that issue at a tad under the £7m spent. It would also have left the tea wagon there. Maybe part of the strategy for moving the tea van on was because of the expensive white elephant - sorry, necessary roundabout, and not a straight (much cheaper) legal eviction. Not that it needed moving on, traffic stopping there never caused me an issue in 10 years. Good video though. Nice to see the surrounding area from the air rather than the limited windscreen view! Keep up the good work, love watching your vids.
I use this roundabout regularly and you have taken the words right out of my mouth! I don't know whether to laugh or cry when confronted with this sort of wasteful negligence 😂😭🤣
The requirements to become a counsellor are British Citizen, 18+, live locally, not bankrupt, not been in prison in the last 5 years Note the total absence of any qualifications, or even knowledge to do the job ...
Oh come now, the British have a centuries old tradition of appointing rank amateurs to important posts. In 1939, my father was fresh out of his full qualification as an opthalmic optician, so the army sent him to N. Wales as a cartographer producing maps of the terrain there. Dad's Army and Monty Python in their separate ways made hay out of satirising British Bumblingness. Long live the cock-up, I say.
But the requirements to became a council highways officer and road planner are much more stringent. For the people at the back THE COUNCILLORS DO NOT COME UP WITH THESE SCHEMES, THEY VOTE ON PROPOSALS MADE BY QUALIFIED ENGINEERS.
These roadworks took forever and caused misery.. leaving us with a roundabout that is no different from what we had. Can we have some checks and balances back? Great video, well thought out and planned 🙏🏽
On 16th August 2024, they started digging up the new verges and placed signage to advise of roadworks commencing on 23rd August - at the new Clophill roundabout!
"...middle class vandalism at its finest." Just..... yes!
Bedfordshire council: "How can I launder and embezzle £6,950,000 into mine all my corrupt mates consultation firms and shell corporations?"
A tory controlled council squandering money ?? I'm just surprised it was only 7m
Nevermind, now you've got kier starmer into no10 I'm sure things will soon be better@@stevee5
The system that approves this sort of thing, and some of the individuals in charge do need to be held to account. Edit, I wouldlike to see a follow up with the council responsible justifying the expense and procedures.
Beds council, bucks council. Berks council. They are all the same. If you do not want to put in he time then some-one else will!
Accountability zero - squandering millions from the pot of thievery that is our council tax
Hi Jon, I was the person who single-handedly campained to Central Bedfordshire Council , the BBC and the wider media about keeping the footbridge. The plan was to remove it to install a surface level crossing like on the other three arms. The bridge is used extstensively by residents and visitors to the woods every day and it's removal would have been a very real safety concern for all the schoolkids using it to get to the rest of the village during rush hours. Thanks god it didnt happen. And this project was approved in the name of the 'Levelling up' scheme.. one meant for deprived regions of the UK. Clophill has the highest ratio of Ferraris per capita in Bedfordshire and couldn't be further away from the real need!! .. and despite promises from the council and the civil engineering company that carried it out - it's full of flaws and a complete waste of money..as you correctly identified - but since when did that get in the way of an infrastructure project just for the sake of it..?
hero
Yet we blame immigrants for this country's failure 🫣🤔
I’m deeply saddened that you appear to have ignored the real purpose: to keep private construction companies in profit...
You're a legend Dean. Great work!
Why is no one ever sacked over ridiculous projects like this?
Kick backs 💷💷💷.
Because they know all the right people.
council ..... you appoint yes men once in a while but the useless shower of shyte who come up with reasons to have yes men remain in their high paid jobs regardless
Why does everything have to be a conspiracy theory about dodgy dealing? Is it because the reality is boring and mundane? This is what happens when decisions are taken by committees with no direct accountability. That such prominence is given to relatively pointless features is purely down to incompetence, a reluctance to challenge others and poor decision making. It is just UK civil bureaucracy doing what it does best. Lots of well meaning people doing their best in a restrictive and risk averse working environment. You’re welcome!
@@Tobester1043 If you think rampant governmental corruption at both a local and national level is a "conspiracy theory" at this point, then you've either not been paying any attention or are intentionally poisoning the well.
I was once told by an eminent QC that you cant make an incompetence or negligence case stick against a council or its staff because the bar is set so low in terms of expectation.
Two-Tier Starmer, no doubt.
I live local to here, and for the last decade or so, developers have been trying to get planning permission to build thousands of houses between Silsoe and Barton-Le-Clay (which is just south off this roundabout on the A6). Said planning permission is extremely unwanted by all local residents. One of the reasons the planning permission keeps being refused is due to the surrounding infrastructure not being able to cope with the added road/footpath traffic. I wouldn't be surprised if this upgrade was done to allow this planning permission to go forward next time it is submitted!
"Local council wastes money on infrastructure project"
There's a headline that gets repeated all too often.
The State is a hungry beast.
almost certain Humphrey Appleby talked on the growth of government being only measure of success that government counts.
(yes yes it was farce but it is scary how well it still fits 4 decades later - i can not get past the fact its no longer 90s apparently)
@@nameless5413 Yes, I worked with the CS for some years and they are exactly that. Greedy, incompetent and with a disdain for the taxpayer which is sickening.
@@I_Don_t_want_a_handleI don't think there's any conscious disdain for the taxpayer. I don't think they consider them at all.
@nameless5413 we are all getting older
What angers is that they find money for these , yet our council closed a popular swimming pool because they said they could not afford £75K to repair the roof.
I guess they just want to close the pool.
Don't worry. They blamed it on the Toriez.
Good @@SampleTracks2224
@@SampleTracks2224 because it was their fault
.🎉
As a frequent user of the White Elephant roundabout I can absolutely confirm, I have never seen flooding at this roundabout. It also does not seem to have changed traffic what so ever, except the customary delays while the works were in place.
Do you think they saw a puddle and thought ‘yep! We can class that as flooding!’
I couldn't even guess how many times I've used this roundabout, and even in the heaviest storms, I've never seen it flooded, even when the river right next to it is higher than usual.
I drive over this roundabout multiple times per day and can confirm the new improvements have 100% made it worse. I’m a truck driver and require more space when driving round roundabouts - when it was 1 lane to enter roundabout it was much safer. Now i have cars trying to squeeze up the inside of me to overtake on the roundabout then cut me off…
That's a very fine trunk on that there knitted elephant, excellent work Agnes. 😆
It's crochet. Sorry.
Cocknose 😂
@@sIightIyboredI'm so glad it wasn't just me who wanted to pick that particular (k)nit
@@CharityAngelSpectrumme too!
@@sIightIybored Came to the comments to find a "well actually" about the elephant being crochet. 😁
My local roundabout. What a wonderful local attraction. I do miss all the road closures and distruption during the 'improvements'...the good old days.
Based on my observations as a night HGV driver the biggest cost of any Road improvement is the setting out and removal of thousands of road cones 10 miles from and 5 miles after one bloke working on the road. This excludes the two guys in a van at every possible entry onto the 15 mile speed restricted cone filled empty carriageway.
You are forgetting the extremely strenuous and lengthy public outreach campaign including advertising market research and branding that they promptly ignore.
We need all council spending to be fully open and published online. All contracts and links for all the people involved.
Waste of taxpayers money
And let’s not forget the MONTHS of traffic chaos at this busy interchange while these roadworks were completed. A detriment to any business in the area that had to suffer this nonsense.
“This roundabout needs a giant pedestrian overpass that noone will use” said Florence. “Council just needs to pay the extra for magic” said Zebidee.
I live in Central Bedfordshire and can confirm this was a complete was of time and money and hasn’t improved anything. Love your videos. Keep up the great work.
Absolutely loved this video, everything spot on!
Extra tidbits about this from a local:
The 'traffic survey' prior to planning the changes was carried out during covid lockdowns. "It's not very busy," said the council. "NO SH*T, WE'RE ALL CONFINED TO OUR HOMES," said those with more than one braincell to share between them. Yes, they literally carried out their official checks and paid people to sit and count (no) traffic while the country were under house arrest.
The huge unused pathway that's almost wide enough for a car, goes up towards an unused crossing (near petrol station) required the clearing of a huge amount of trees, where they built a temporary site office, clearing all the land up to an old bridge. Rather than expand the road and pathway to use up this cleared area and improve traffic flow, they left it barren and in fact have NARROWED the road at this side of the junction, making it worse than it was.
The plans changed so much. It could have been excellent, but it was cut back and fumbled and honestly deserves every white elephant placed there.
Also, regarding the footbridge, the plan by central beds was to ignore the locals who fought and argued, and demolish the bridge anyway. Fortunately, they ran out of money so couldn't do what they planned and left the bridge.
you have so much potential content in sheffield. the dutch roundabout for example.
Never thought I'd see Clophill's roundabout on here! It's an absolute nightmare coming off the A507 towards Shefford as they've added in two lanes to go straight on when you're coming from the west side, but it immediately merges into one lane on the east side. Not once seen anyone use the traffic lights on the south side, though given the speeds people do approaching the A6 from there, it's probably no wonder.
Bedfordshire's not had much luck with traffies this past year though - they installed a new set by Doolittle Mill on the Flitwick/Ampthill border a few months back, and before the week was up a tree fell down and rendered them useless. Whole county seems to be in a constant state of temporary lights tbh.
You mean the A507
@@petewood7247 Whoops, yeah, that's the one!
"ok, but it was £7m pounds of taxpayers money, so it doesn't matter" ... every politician, everywhere.
You forgot to add this took over 1 year to implement with diversions through villages and misery every day!!!
That's Council Efficiency for you - efficiency in causing disruption!
I feel like he often ignores the time it takes to build these things and how that impacts traffic, and only focuses on how traffic is before the project started and after the project was done. But during the construction is also very important, especially when it's that long.
"We're a bit short of money, we're going to have to raid your pensions".
Sorry but those corrupt contracts given to the mates of councillors arent going to pay for themselves
@@dukedragon28where's the evidence that they are mates or that the contract was corrupt? Libel laws still apply on social media
@@ianholloway3778 I havent given any names so I cant possibly be libelling anyone
Sadly every council is the same 😢
In other news, local construction firm bosses pack seven million into their bags and say "goodbye to the circus", allegedly.
As a local retired resident i no longer use the roundabout to commute however a regular commuter has said traffic flow has inproved however as a rate payer had i been told £7million would be spent i would have asked for something a lot slicker than what we have got.
Having once been a local Borough Councillor that was expelled from the party for voting against a motion, made worse for them as a hung council. The amount of money spent on consultants and feasibility studies was mind blowing, the results often ignored and the party's own scheme was passed, often causing more problems than it was designed to fix.
I work in Civil Engineering designing projects like this. Does my absolute nut in how moneys wasted!
Nellie the elephant ending. Purrfect.
Have a look at jcn 14 on the M5, they spent over 1.5 million on traffic lights for peak traffic, but now turn them off at peak times because of the chaos it causes, but leave them on at off peak times when they were never needed in the first place, over 15 years ago!!!!
I like how the drone shots show that barely anyone is using the added lanes.
Some years ago a roundabout on the Buckingham bypass was "improved", the work caused mayhem for a long time as it took longer than expected. As soon as it opened it was immediately apparent that the junction had been made worse and work soon started to amend the design , this took another two years to complete. I have no idea how much that all cost. I suspect that the Buckinghamshire roundabout designers quietly moved to nearby Bedfordshire to continue their wicked ways.
Know that roundabout only too well, so it was the same idiot designers who made, was it 2 or 3, attempts at the Black Cat roundabout, they completely screwed that one up as well, then they moved onto the A1 Biggleswade south roundabout which is oval not round, set at the wrong angle and awful heading north as the entry is far too tight. Then Clophill....... Where next for these geniuses - retirement on their £50K pensions?
There are only three things that could make this channel better....
More Bev, May & Rik!!!
Thank you!
Thanks :)
Love your unique style, never change!
My request for the next Great British Road Journeys episode: A30 Honiton - Land's End
Amazing they didn't add traffic lights at the roundabout though!
I have to drive through here on my commute and it's shit. Should have invested it into widening some more of the A6 and A507.
Don’t forget this just a mile up the road from Central Bedfordshire Council HQ
Corruption at every turn
Thank you for addressing that particular elephant in the room 🐘
I live close nearby and use this roundabout often...and you are absolutely correct, a massive waste of money.
Possibly the best Auto Shenanigans video to date - they just keep getting better!
Pedant alert!
That elephant is crocheted, not knitted.
Excellent -- I scrolled through the comments to see if someone else had pointed it out.
Jon you need to bring out a 2025 calendar….”crap junctions and roundabouts top 12”
i drove on it the other day and wandered what the hell they spent all that time doing when working on it. its mostly the same as it was and just as busy.
I used to commute to bedford up the A6, it was terrible before the works and nothings changed, never seen it flood - for extra sh*ts & giggles they also closed one the A6 lanes coming in to clophill - so the tale backs reach all the way to the top of deadmans hill.
By far one of the best videos youve done so far mate.
I don't normally comment but I've been watching this guy for ages and he is brilliant..unique. keep up the good work 😊
Sarcasm has no bounds
It’s never a waste of money to whomever pocketed it.
Most likely is a brother of one of the councillors is a highway contractor that had no work so was given this project.
Wonderful job. Perhaps the BBC could take note?
Which councillors mate got the £7m contract?
Bob the Builder probably.
The A507 has always been a very busy rat run between the A1 at Stotfold and Milton Keynes which is a single carriageway along its entire length. Anyway, when I go that way, I avoid the route and cut through Hitchin, Barton-le-Clay, Harlington and join the M1 at J12 at Toddington rather than J13 which also has to accommodate the end of the Bedford Bypass. Another bypass was added near to Ridgmont some time later but that was only when Centre Parcs had opened its Woburn Forest holiday camp. It was upgraded where it bypassed several towns and villages in the 1980's and 1990's on its Eastern end at Stotford, Arlessey and Shefford but the central portion where this is located on it its original route and the bridge over the railway had been to be strengthened over Arlessey station a few years back as it had structural problems.
I remember when Arlesey had a level crossing, long before the flyover.
Oooo Councils do love wasting our money don't they !! ..
Oh don't worry, it never gets "wasted". You're just not paying for what you thought you were. In reality, the money goes to funding the retirements of the friends and family of one or more people with influence on the council, who just so happen to be in the business of implementing whatever wacky scheme said council have come up with.
I save myself from getting too stressed about it by thinking of it as money that has been 'reintroduced into the economy' but don't dwell too long on where that might be.
Hilarious but serious at the same time Love it More! More!
Please do one on the pile of 💩 roundabout on the A1M at Biggleswade.
Biggleswade South roundabout? Agreed, they’ve got the lines and signs wrong there. It confuses a lot of drivers.
Bravo monsieur! Bravo!
This is the sort of investigative journalism you used to see on *That's Life* Great story. Anyone know where the accounts for this project are kept?
CBC finances are in total disarray. Mentioned in Private Eye a few months ago. They’re blocking FOI requests.
All too common unfortunately. Maybe it's linked to the theory that if a council doesn't use up all its allocated budget in a year, then it's deemed not to need as much in the year to come. So they spend every last penny on whatever they can. Loony economics, but there you go...
A true theory
I liked this video, so clicked the button specifically placed to demonstrate my liking of the video.
As this project took one year to complete it allowed the council to reduce the lanes onto the nellieabout to one causing even more traffic chaos for all that time. I enjoyed queuing 25 minutes to get into Clophill so it was worth the whole Seven Million.
Those local schools that don't exist are the only schools in the entire country under budget, with class sizes below target numbers, with 0 days off from pupils, and 0 failures on tests and exams!
Knitted white elephants. Amazing ❤
Perfect summary of how our council works around these parts.
Road planners/councils should definitely watch your videos before working on roads. Quality work my friend 👏
I love that you call out the 'improvements' councils make as the bull it is.
Ah, yes, a bull elephant 🐘
Lincolnshire County Council spent a similar figure in 2021, altering Holdingham Roundabout on the A17, following years of congestion after the plans to dual carriageway the road from Newark to Kings Lynn were cancelled. The improvements have made no difference to the tailbacks on the A17 through route, with queues of up to a mile recorded at peak times. There is admittedly a slight improvements for local traffic in the rush hour, though this is more than negated by the delays caused by the traffic signals at quieter times. Who ever though it was a good idea to end a dual carriageway at a roundabout... 🙄
It was £7 million well spent... it gave you a shed load of material for yet another entertaining video!
Another great vid Jon 👍🏾👍🏾. More proof that councils just waste money.
I would LOVE to know what students of town and highway planning get taught during their degrees (assuming they have any relevant qualifications at all) - they are all completely hopeless! However, i suspect that a healthy proportion of the 7 mill was spent on consultancy fees for the pre-requisite traffic surveys and alternative schemes.
Hello Jon.
If you think Bedfordshire council has created a white elephant then Norfolk county council can trump that with it's absolute farce of a project on the A1074 heading into Norwich. Not only did the residents object to the creation of bus lanes for only 2 buses an hour and the buses hub that only one service will use, but it has also added a small 400yrd bus lane out of the city to improve congestion where there has never been any. All this money came from the government apparently but everyone says it could have been spent more wisely.
We said no but they've done it anyway and it's taken a year so far and still not finished.
There are some very, very good salespeople working for construction companies, it seems.
The real kicker is during the consultation phase they had options for a few far more effective solutions which they didn't go for in the end due to being "too expensive" only then to go ahead and spend £7million on this.
I bet a hefty proportion of the £7M went to so-called ‘consultants’.
Yup. I bet there's serious money to be made advising local authorities where to paint white lines on tarmac.
I used this roundabout a heck of a lot during its "construction/refurbishment" only used it once since completion... I saw no difference in terms of speed getting through/around the roundabout or the queues of traffic.... a massive improvement for sure
Actually, reducing the speed limit in responce to high non-compliance with the existing speed limit is a really stupid thing to do, especially when the A507 here is a bypass presumably designed for a 40mph speed limit.
Agreed, but try explaining that to local councillors.
Hi Jon. You should try the M42 (J6)/A45 work for size. Another exanple of 'improvements' that have been happening for years with nothing seemingly improved. They're now been constructing an additional link road from M42 Northbound to Birmingham airport. Costing an arm and a leg and destroying several businesses in the meantime. AND this new link will merely dump its participants on to the existing roundabout (once known as the Clock Roundabout) with little or no improvements. Heaven only knows what the area will look like when (if!) the HS2 Interchange area is open.
It's Central Bedfordshire Council. The county-wide council was abolished in 2009
Brilliant! I showed my wife this video and she agrees! Great knitting! Well done Agnes
Oh my. If it wasn’t so wasteful it would be hilarious. Oh wait a minute. It is anyway. I bet som council nuftie got a huge financial pay on the back too. Great video as per usual mate. Love you long time. :-)
Hate to be a pedant, but the elephant is crochet, not knitting!
How are the potholes in Beds?
Anyone else think the £7m was frittered away to Council family contractors?
I used to travel this roundabout every work day for 10 years. It never flooded! The surrounding meadows did during the winter months. The worst water on the roundabout was following heavy rain causing standing water on half the exit lane to Ampthill. I suspect fitting proper drains to the roundabout would have solved that issue at a tad under the £7m spent. It would also have left the tea wagon there. Maybe part of the strategy for moving the tea van on was because of the expensive white elephant - sorry, necessary roundabout, and not a straight (much cheaper) legal eviction. Not that it needed moving on, traffic stopping there never caused me an issue in 10 years. Good video though. Nice to see the surrounding area from the air rather than the limited windscreen view! Keep up the good work, love watching your vids.
Thanks!
I use this roundabout regularly and you have taken the words right out of my mouth! I don't know whether to laugh or cry when confronted with this sort of wasteful negligence 😂😭🤣
£6m on H&S, with risk assessments, etc, and £1m of actual work done.
The requirements to become a counsellor are British Citizen, 18+, live locally, not bankrupt, not been in prison in the last 5 years
Note the total absence of any qualifications, or even knowledge to do the job ...
You forgot - They Must live very close to the Clophill Roundabout.
I bet they can spell ‘councillor’, though.
@@chrisbardell what makes you so sure? 😂
Oh come now, the British have a centuries old tradition of appointing rank amateurs to important posts. In 1939, my father was fresh out of his full qualification as an opthalmic optician, so the army sent him to N. Wales as a cartographer producing maps of the terrain there. Dad's Army and Monty Python in their separate ways made hay out of satirising British Bumblingness. Long live the cock-up, I say.
But the requirements to became a council highways officer and road planner are much more stringent. For the people at the back THE COUNCILLORS DO NOT COME UP WITH THESE SCHEMES, THEY VOTE ON PROPOSALS MADE BY QUALIFIED ENGINEERS.
These roadworks took forever and caused misery.. leaving us with a roundabout that is no different from what we had. Can we have some checks and balances back?
Great video, well thought out and planned 🙏🏽
Have a look at the Grovehill Junction in Beverley
Good old Agnes.
Great video. Really highlights the stupid things councils waste there money on. Councils should ask residents what they want.
The white elephant 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
On 16th August 2024, they started digging up the new verges and placed signage to advise of roadworks commencing on 23rd August - at the new Clophill roundabout!
Did anyone else think of the Toy Dolls at the end! 😂
Does anyone else remember them....
Yes
😊👏👏👌 superb deconstruction of this farce of a "project"
Yes caused months of chaos for a solidly wider roundabout and some extra paint. At least they didn’t get rid of the clophill footbridge
Wider roundabout?
Did I miss something in the video? I didn't hear anything about a widening of the roundabout.
Changed from 1.5 lanes to 2 all the way round. Was one of those ones where you could just about go 2 wide if you were brave.
Council giving friends and family some generous contacts? Same government corruption as usual unfortunately. Vote them out.