Road condition - What can I do about this?

[RH20]

Strange creatures us cyclists. We can ride a bike off road over rough, gravelly ground, but we complain about some rough back lanes. Yes I’ve done my fair share of complaining about the state of the roads. We should expect the roads to be safe, we expect off road tracks to be lumpy.
Perhaps the local media/tv might be interested in this lane. You could also try informing the council that should you hear of anyone having an accident due to the road condition you would be willing to assist in a compensation claim on the grounds that you have reported the poor road surface.
If it is a long stretch of little used lane the local authority may decide that in these financially constrained times the cost of repair is too prohibitive. I suspect the mentality of councils is; repair it, we have to pay, but if there is an accident claim against us, the insurer pays. This is probably just the cynic in me.

[mjr]

Strange creatures us cyclists. We can ride a bike off road over rough, gravelly ground, but we complain about some rough back lanes.

Gosh, it's almost like cyclists aren't one hive mind, isn't it?(!)

If it is a long stretch of little used lane the local authority may decide that in these financially constrained times the cost of repair is too prohibitive. I suspect the mentality of councils is; repair it, we have to pay, but if there is an accident claim against us, the insurer pays. This is probably just the cynic in me.

I doubt insurance covers the local authority if they blatantly fail in their legal duty, else it would become very easy just to discontinue maintenance on lots of roads, probably mainly where the executive members don't expect their party to ever get elected.

And of course, maintaining a quiet road can allow the surface to remain for decades which will work out much cheaper than the reconstruction and resurfacing needed if it's allowed to be persistently flooded and breaks up.

[fastpedaller]

. I'm of the opinion that Norfolk County Council just either don't understand (or don't want to) that putting chipping on this (and many other roads) traps seeds which then give the problem in the photo.

I suspect the Council are unclear as to the nature of the problem!
It's not clear what trapped seeds have to do with it, these don't appear to cause problems at other locations where surface dressings are applied.
If you are complaining about grass in the middle of the road, that is not usually a problem on single track roads. If you are complaining about flooding then why not take a photo of the road when flooded, with some indications of the depth of flooding?

trapped seeds become grass - I've not seen grass growing on roads that are wide enough for cars to compact the chippings.

[sirmy]

What's the status of the lane, looking like that it's hard to believe it's adopted, although saying that in my area there are at least two adopted roads that only lead to farms. Unfortunately the road maintenance fairy doesn't have a bottomless money pit so a lightly used track like that will come a long way down the list when weighed against the need to maintain an A road or even an estate road.

[pwa]

What's the status of the lane, looking like that it's hard to believe it's adopted, although saying that in my area there are at least two adopted roads that only lead to farms. Unfortunately the road maintenance fairy doesn't have a bottomless money pit so a lightly used track like that will come a long way down the list when weighed against the need to maintain an A road or even an estate road.

Here is a lane I use quite a lot:

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4528522 ... 6?hl=en-GB

To be fair it doesn't usually look as bad as that, but tatty lanes are very common around here and I like them. They get next to no traffic!

[cycle tramp]

Ok...
...first thing is that any expenditure to clear the road or improve the drainage will come out of the local authority road budget which is funded through your council tax. Also funded through your council tax are things like schools, and adult social care. With an aging population adult social care is squeezing the budgets on every thing else. Although our council tax goes up road maintenance budgets are getting smaller in real terms...
...second thing is that although the council is responsible for the repair of the road it is not responsible for those items which fall onto it... this includes soil and mud.
...the strip of grass in the middle of the road, has grown because there is no enough vehicle traffic to remove the earth from which it is growing. The grass has not grown up from underneath the new clippings, but has self speeded from grasses nearby.
...Given the demands of your local authority I would enjoy the road as it is, safe in the knowledge that any money not spent in demanding with this problem can be used elsewhere.

[gaz]

If it's really for a handful of vehicles, maybe it should be downgraded to an unpaved road, same as many others in Norfolk. Having it purporting to be a tarmac road but not maintaining it as such serves no one well.

What is the technical distinction between a paved road and an unpaved road? Surely it's either a highway maintained at public expense or it's a PRoW of one category or another.

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[mjr]

Ok...
...first thing is that any expenditure to clear the road or improve the drainage will come out of the local authority road budget which is funded through your council tax.

Except for the grant from central government which is funded through other general taxation.

...second thing is that although the council is responsible for the repair of the road it is not responsible for those items which fall onto it... this includes soil and mud.

They are responsible for drainage of the water which falls onto it and carries that mud there.

...Given the demands of your local authority I would enjoy the road as it is, safe in the knowledge that any money not spent in demanding with this problem can be used elsewhere.

"Bend over, cyclists! Your pittance of a share of the transport budget will be taken for other things while motorists continue to live high on the hog!"? No, that's no way to encourage active travel.

What is the technical distinction between a paved road and an unpaved road? Surely it's either a highway maintained at public expense or it's a PRoW of one category or another.

I don't know the technical distinction but the practical distinction is that unpaved roads are shown in green on the Norfolk County Council mapping and managed by the Highways Dept while PRoWs are shown in pink and managed by the PRoW office. The two departments have different standards and practices.