Cycling UK Forum

bartlebobton wrote: ↑23 Aug 2023, 5:58pmMy FOI request; "Will you send me records of your maintenance days, plus the specific tasks your performed for; May, June, July and Aug 2023 for the A12 cyclepathway, between Witham and Kelvedon ".
{snip}

Thoughts / comments much appreciated

FOI is a bit of a blunt instrument. Your question asks for records of maintenance days and specific tasks performed.

Somebody has interpreted that as asking for details of an inspection regime and what that involves, it probably gives you a little more than you asked for although you're no closer to knowing:-

- What faults (if any) were identified in the last few months of driven inspections.
- When the last walked inspection of this particular path occured and what (if anything) was noted.
- When they last varied the frequency of walked inspections and why.

If NH decline your claim for damages you haven't learned anything useful with which to challenge them from the FOI.

Best of luck Bartle -- let us know how it pans out.

Here's one answer for you.

"Footways and cycle paths are inspected annually as part of a detailed, walked inspection of the entire network that starts each April"
Most trees and wild plants are just coming out of their dormant state, so are they projecting what it's going to look like in June/July/August... they can't. Using FOI I can ask for a copy of the last detailed walk.

Here's half an answer, it doesn't carry much weight;
A driven inspection of the main A12 carriageway is completed each week. Obvious defects and other problems with footways and cycle paths that can be identified as part of these driven inspections will be recorded alongside any defect recorded for the carriageway and will then be corrected. However, any defect recorded is currently associated with the main carriageway and not identified separately as being related to the footway or cycle path in our repair database.

So each week the cycle path is inspected from a driven inspection. Well, from the trash I've seen, little, or nothing is done. So, what's the scenario ? the Inspector is sitting in the passenger seat, with the window open, craning his/her neck to see the pathway, he can't see the footpath wholly from the carriage way. At what speed is the car/van travelling at... 60...50....40...30...20mph. If it was 20, 30 or 40mph they'd just create a tailback, for miles and miles, they wouldn't want to do that, I'm sure. So what's an acceptable speed to make an assesment of the cycle pathway ? To put it bluntly, they can't see the topography of the area in or around the footpath from a car or van, there can only be the thinest of inspections. The word inspection is nothing more than a weasel word. The definition of inspection is the act of looking at something carefully !
So, how is anyone supposed to differentiate between defects to the main carriageway and defects of the cyclepath when it's not identified in their db ? Any half decent db design should categorise with specifics such as "attributes".... So a category could be Road and Pathway Repairs, the attributes would be Pathways and Carriageways, each with their own db ID... that's it in simplistic term.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is only one person in a car/van making an "inspection" of both road and pathway. - Another question using FOI perhaps.

I think I've learn quite a bit from their answers. I would never have guessed that's how these "inspections" are carried out and I don't think anyone else has, it's more information and helps build a picture, the bigger the picture the better the understanding of their practices.

I can still ask the questions you suggest, for now, I'll wait, but they won't get lost.

BB

The key words are
"Obvious defects and other problems with footways and cycle paths that can be identified as part of these driven inspections"

That's the get out clause -- so basically it's got to be something very obvious from a driven inspection eg a fallen tree maybe encroaching on the roadway but even that won't be recorded as a defect with the cycle path but will be recorded on the main roadway database.

In essence the cycle path is only checked annually.

Got it, thanks for summing that one up so easily, a better effort than me rambling on.... The weekly spin, really is, not much more, than a token gesture...
BB